Where All This Started by HambelandJemima and Slantedlight - Part One
Always right up to the whistle - even when there's two of us... *g*
Where All This Started
by HambelandJemima and Slantedlight
Something was wrong with Bodie. Doyle watched him through slitted eyes from the sofa, the way he gathered the detritus of their meal together; plates clanked into a pile, cutlery jangled on top, a bottle of brown sauce and one of ketchup in his other hand, and then off to the kitchen.
It wasn’t that Bodie never cleared away after they’d eaten together - but he never did it without at least a token complaint, and a quiet Bodie was usually something to worry about. He’d been in a strange mood all night in fact, either too hail-fellow-well-met and matey jokes, or oddly serious and… quiet. As if, Doyle thought suddenly, he was waiting for something, and didn’t know whether it was going to be a good something or the kind of something that required gritted teeth and clenched fists. He’d been funny about coming over in the first place, come to think of it, as if…
Bodie’s head poked around the door, eyebrows raised, jovial twinkle working overtime again. “Cup of tea, darling?” he asked, falsetto, and then reverted to normal again. “But I can’t find the Penguins.”
“That’s because you ate ‘em all last time you were here. And yeah, go on then.”
“I left three on the refrigerator - and you pretend you don’t eat chocolate!” He vanished again, and Doyle heard the snap of the kettle being switched on, listened to the ceramic thump of the mugs on the counter, the fridge being opened for the milk.
Eventually he appeared again, a mug in either hand and a packet tucked under one arm. “Abbey Crunch!” he said, leaning over the sofa and letting it drop onto the cushion. “That the best you can do?” He put the mugs down, half-hesitated, and then sat down on the sofa himself, right beside Doyle, cast a quick glance at him and then away again.
“Alright,” Doyle began. “Spit it out then. What’s got -”
The telephone rang, the red telephone, the CI5 telephone, and he frowned at it, tempted to ignore it. Bodie was looking like a man reprieved and a man ready to hang himself at the same time.
“Leave it, Ray…”
He couldn’t leave it - it could be important… He leapt up with a glare in Bodie’s direction, crossing to the side table in quick strides, and lifted the receiver. “Doyle.”
“Call for three-seven,” came the clipped tones of Dorothea from the switchboard. “Do you know his whereabouts, four-five?”
“He’s here,” he said, just as shortly. It was their night off, for God’s sake… “Who is it, a grass?”
“She wouldn’t say, but if it’s not you can tell Bodie…”
She. “Yeah, got it. Thanks.” Maybe it really was a grass. “Put her through, love.”
There was a click against his ear, then the slightly crackling connection came in. “Is Bodie there?” A woman’s voice - a young woman’s voice, and suddenly everything was clear.
“Hold on.” He frowned again, but stretched the phone towards Bodie. “It’s for you, hotshot.”
“For me?” Bodie’s face was a picture of puzzled innocence, and Doyle didn’t believe it for one minute. This was what his great lump of a partner had been fretting about all evening, whoever the bird was on the end of the line.
So much for their quiet night in, something Doyle had been looking forward to for days, since Bodie had first suggested it. It had been ruined three times in a row by Cowley and whichever minister had been making demands of him this time. A quiet night in, he’d thought, just the two of them with the telly, some wholesome home-made food for a change, maybe the late night film if it was half decent. He’d stocked up on beers, even managed apple crumble and custard for pudding - one of Bodie’s favourites, obviously, all stodge and comfort. Fruit salad would have been…
Comfort - that’s what he’d been missing tonight, the comfort of it! He clicked his finger in realisation, rolled his eyes at Bodie when he looked quizzically over from the phone. Whoever the girl was, she was chattering away like a magpie, and Bodie was looking bemused - but sort of soft and affectionate too, twining the phone cord round and around his fingers. Utterly engrossed.
Bodie was supposed to have been engrossed in what they’d been doing tonight, all that relaxation after a hard couple of weeks, winding down in undemanding company that just… that just knew what it was all like. The comfort of just being the two of them together, without being shot at or shouted at, or standing in the freezing cold wind or rain or whatever December was deciding to throw at them.
Somewhere warm and comfortable and just the two of them.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Bodie was saying now, flicking a quick look at Doyle and then turning away to speak more quietly into the receiver. “Yeah. Half-ten then. Alright, see you, kid.”
“Still at school is she?” he asked when Bodie finally hung up and turned around again.
“Eh?”
He nodded to the phone. “Hope she’s out of sixth form at least, or Cowley’ll ‘ave something to say.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow at him, then took himself over to the sideboard where Doyle kept his drinks. “Sniffter?” he asked, plummy as he could be in a single word, pouring two glasses of scotch anyway, and bringing one over. He didn’t sit beside Doyle this time, dropping onto the armchair instead, and staring vaguely back at the television, where John Simpson was winding up for the night.
“Go on then, who is she?”
“She, Raymond, is the cat’s mother - and you know what happened to the cat.”
It wasn’t like Bodie to be coy about his women either - the last time that happened it had been that Marikka bird… hang about.
“Ten thirty?”
Bodie was looking at him with resignation. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“We’ve got the court booked!”
“Can’t be helped...” he said, but there was a smirk to his lips, and that coy look again.
It bloody well could be helped, Doyle thought, swallowing the rest of his whisky in a single, harsh mouthful and standing up. He’d had enough, suddenly, of the whole surreal evening. If Bodie wanted to chuck him over for some leggy blonde then why should it bother him?
He was going to bed.
“Right then,” he said. “I’m off. Want to catch the market tomorrow morning and I won’t do that sittin’ up with you all night, will I?”
“Ray...” Bodie was getting up too now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night at the pub then. Don’t be late.” Bodie could turn the box off and see himself out. He put his glass down on the table, probably harder than he needed to, and strode out of the room.
o0o
The high street was quiet when Bodie arrived, so it was easy to see Jenna waiting outside the Wimpy as they’d arranged. A man was with her, his back to the road, and they appeared to be arguing. As Bodie pulled up the man stormed off with long, angry strides, leaving Jenna looking rattled.
“Are you ok?” Bodie asked her, getting out of the car. He walked round to the pavement, still watching the man. There was something familiar about the way he walked. Someone he knew? “Who was that?”
Jenna followed his gaze. “Just someone who wanted me to do some work for him. I told him no, I’m retired.” She gave a shrug. “He didn’t like it.”
“What sort of work? What’s his name?”
“What is this, an interrogation?” Her Scouse accent was more pronounced when she was annoyed.
Bodie turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. “Work that I no longer do,” she answered, reluctantly, “and I didn’t catch his name ‘cos I’m not interested.” She smiled at him. It was her patented fake, innocent smile and Bodie wasn’t taken in by it at all. “Give me the keys, Will, I don’t want to be late.”
“Name,” he insisted, ignoring her outstretched hand.
She sighed as if Bodie was asking the impossible and when he didn’t move, she sighed again and dropped her hand. “Alright. His name was Larry. He didn’t give me his last name and I didn’t ask. I don’t want no trouble, Will. I just want to borrow your car to get to a job interview. Please.”
Bodie thought about it. “I could drive you. I don’t have to be at work ‘til this evening.”
She gave him a withering look, the sort of look she used to give him when they were kids and he’d said something extremely stupid. “How’s that gonna look, eh? Like I can’t even drive me own car-”
“It’s not your car,” Bodie pointed out.
“But I’ve been driving since me legs have been long enough to reach the pedals. I swear, Will, if you do anything to bugger up this interview I will drive your car into the river and let the little fishies play house with it.”
“It’s an official CI5 car and if you do that, you’d better make sure you run far away from it,” Bodie said through gritted teeth, “because the Cow will break those long legs of yours if I don’t do it first,”
She glared at him. “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe I’ve got a real interview for a legitimate job.”
“You’re not exactly dressed for one,” Bodie pointed out. “Don’t you normally wear make-up if you want to impress someone? Nail varnish? Make a bit of effort with your hair?”
He was still thinking about the bloke that Jenna had been talking to. What was it that seemed familiar? Something in the roll of those shoulders as the man walked away…
Jenna huffed in annoyance, rummaging through her handbag. “Bloody cheek. Like you’re an expert on women. We don’t all have to look like a soddin’ supermodel. ‘Ere, take a look at this.” She hauled out an envelope and thrust it in his hands.
Bodie gingerly pulled out the letter and read it. It looked genuine. Addressed to Jenna, it was from Brand’s Garage inviting her to a job interview for a junior mechanic position.
He grinned, relieved, feeling a little stupid as he caught her eye. “Alright, I can see why you don’t want to get all dolled up.”
“They’d laugh me out the garage,” she sniffed in a haughty manner. “But if I’m driving your car I can say it’s mine and they’ll be dead impressed with it.” She dropped the cocky attitude. “Well…. I won’t say it’s mine, but I’ll imply it. Bodie, this job is as good as mine! I’ve got the qualifications and I’ve got the references, and Vic’s put in a good word for me an’ all. This is my chance to be respectable, like you always said I should be. I want this! Please… trust me with your car. I promise faithfully I’ll return it by lunchtime. On me mother’s grave.”
That wasn’t a promise Jenna made lightly. Bodie gave a nod and handed back the envelope after tucking the letter back in safely. “Give ‘em hell, our kid,” he said.
She smiled and leaned forward to brush a kiss over his cheek as she took the keys out of his hand. “Thanks, Will. You’re a diamond.”
Bodie grimaced, already regretting his decision as she started up the Capri and took off down the high street with no regard for speed limits or the rubber on his tyres.
o0o
It was raining, and everyone who had any sense had retreated indoors, away from the December weather and the misery of the week before Christmas, were no doubt curled up in front of the box watching Last of the Summer Wine or Bob Monkhouse or whatever idiot was on the goggle-box tonight. Not, Doyle scowled, this idiot - oh no, he, this mug was out in the middle of it all, covering for Bodie again. Bloody Bodie, who you knew, you just knew, wasn’t having car trouble at all, but was tucked up in a cosy bed with that bird he was shagging.
He shivered as yet another huge raindrop fell from the gutter above him, straight down his collar and onto his neck. And you knew, didn’t you - he knew - that since he wasn’t here to start with, bloody Bodie probably wasn’t going to turn out the whole bloody night, leaving muggins to pick up the pieces again. Not that there were many pieces out here to start with - it had been a slim hope that Cruiggan would show up at all, why the hell Cowley had decided it was worth good agents’ time... Bloody Cowley.
There was a flash of golden light as the door of The Dutch Arms swung open wide, and a raucous group of women spilled onto the street, half a dozen of them in short skirts and high heels, screeching with laughter and trying to open enough umbrellas to keep them all dry. Behind them Doyle caught a glimpse of Thursday night festivity, red and green tinsel twined around the bar, a fruit machine flashing away in a corner. A warm, dry, comfortable fug, pints of beer and optics gleaming with brandy and vodka…
Bloody Bodie. He was going to take great pleasure in wringing his bloody skiving neck when he caught up with him…
“Well if it isn’t Ray Doyle!”
Doyle swung around, disconcerted. He knew that voice, a voice from the past that was - but where the hell…?
“You fucking bastard,” said the voice, and there was a sudden sharp pain against his head, and he was falling, and then there was nothing.
o0o
Bodie pounded on the door, not even bothering with the doorbell. He was cold and soaked through, and if anyone else gave him the run-around tonight they’d be eating their Christmas turkey through a straw.
He heard footsteps on the stairs and redoubled his efforts, wincing when the porch light came on and assaulted his eyeballs. The door opened just wide enough for him to see an eye and a nose and he jammed his foot in the gap at the bottom.
“Where’s Jenna?” he demanded, leaning his shoulder against the door.
“Christ almighty. Do you know what bloody time it is?” The voice sounded irritated, probably about having had to get out of a warm bed rather than it being past midnight. “Move your foot, you bloody cretin, so I can get the chain off.”
Bodie backed off and stood glowering for the few seconds it took. He swore Jenna would be the death of him, with her hare-brained schemes and atrocious taste in men. The next time she wanted his help she could bloody well go and jump.
The door opened and he pushed past, striding through the hall and into the darkened living room. The Christmas tree stood forbiddingly in the corner, sinister and silent without its twinkling fairy lights. It was bigger than last year’s, Bodie thought, probably to accommodate the ever-growing pile of presents underneath.
“Hello, Bradders, sorry to get you up at this godawful hour. That’s quite alright, Bodie, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for waking up half the street and giving my neighbours even more reason to bend my ear about the dodgy company I keep.”
Bodie glared at his cousin who stood in the doorway, unflinching. They were evenly matched in height and with the same shade of blue in their eyes that both their mothers had inherited from the Kilduff side of the family. Ian was leaner, though, wiry rather than muscular, but still not a man to be pushed around, even in his pyjamas. He was much like Doyle in that respect.
The thought of his partner - and the fact that Bodie had had to lie to him again - sharpened his voice. “Where’s Jenna?”
“No idea.” Ian moved away from the doorway, flicking the light switch on and sitting on the arm of what Bodie knew was his favourite chair. “Is that everything, mate? Only I’ve got work in the morning. A good ol’ nine to five job. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“Don’t muck me around,” Bodie snarled. “She’s got my car and I want it back.”
“Your car? The Capri?” There was amusement in Ian’s voice. “How are you gonna explain that one?”
“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice hissed from the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll wake the kids if you’re not careful.”
“It’s Bodie. He’s lost Jenna. And his car.”
“Oh, for crying out loud....” Sheila came into the living room, wrapping her dressing gown tightly around her. She was a small, slim woman with dark brown hair that she currently wore in a long plait down her back. “Bodie, you’re soaked through! For God’s sake, don’t you men ever notice these things?”
Bodie gritted his teeth against her concern. “You must have some idea where she is,” he said to both of them.
Ian looked at his wife and shrugged. “You know her usual haunts and hiding places as well as we do,” he said to Bodie. “I assume you’ve tried them all?”
“All the ones I could think of.” He spun away from the pair of them, knowing he looked furious, knowing it wasn’t their fault. “Damn it!”
“Have a cup of tea and get out of those wet things,” Sheila said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
“I don’t have time. I’m already late for work.”
“Then a few more minutes isn’t going to make any difference. Ian’s got something you can change into and a cup of tea will warm you up before you go back out.”
She left the room before Bodie could protest any more. “Better do as she says, mate,” Ian said, getting up. “We can look for her tomorrow when it’s daylight.”
“You’re working tomorrow,” Bodie pointed out, struggling out of his sodden jacket.
“I’ll call in sick. Family’s more important. I’ll go and get those clothes for you.”
“Just hope it’s not going to be too late tomorrow,” Bodie muttered, but he said it to an empty room.
Doyle was going to be so pissed off with him.
o0o
Doyle came round to a half-muffled squeaking and squealing that he thought might just be what would kill him. It sliced into his headache like a knife, and he scrunched his eyes against the noise and the pain, turning his head away. His cheek scraped across something hard and cold and covered in grit, so that he jerked his head back and winced yet again. Where the fuck was he? What had…?
It came back to him slowly but surely as he lay, breathing carefully in and out, trying not to do anything that would bring back the pain. Ashton - he remembered seeing Ashton, out of the blue, and just before he’d been knocked out by whatever other bastard had been with him. Not Cruiggan, not the man he’d actually been looking out for, apparently oblivious to anyone else, but Lawrence bloody Ashton, clearly let out of the Scrubs early, and without any warning to those who might like to know. And Christ, the Cow was going to have a fit, no Cruiggan, no Bodie and now no bloody Doyle to report in tomorrow either.
The noise, he realised suddenly, had stopped, but it had been replaced by a quieter sound, a scraping and shushing noise that his brain couldn’t quite place - and whatever it was, it was coming towards him, slowly and steadily.
He had to open his eyes. He was tied up, could feel the rope tight around his wrists and ankles, but they hadn’t gagged him. He swallowed without moisture, braced himself for whatever was out there, and managed to raise one eyelid enough to see dim electric light, then the other, and to focus…
A pair of deep blue eyes was gazing straight into his. For a moment he thought it was alright - Bodie, it’s Bodie… - and then he realised that everything else about the face was all wrong - darker skin, paler, perfectly arched eyebrows, longer nose… and it was a woman. But the eyes - the eyes looking at him in concern were so like Bodie’s eyes that he only let his gaze flick over the rest of her - tied up, just as he was, but also gagged - and then let himself look straight back into them. She was a prisoner, just as he was.
“You al-” he began, but his voice came out a thin rasp, so he closed his eyes, swallowed once more, and tried again. “You alright, love?”
The girl nodded slowly, then her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head instead, though she didn’t actually start to cry again.
“Is there anyone in here with us?” he asked, to avoid having to look behind him and around before he’d found his balance and his courage, and she shook her head again.
“Okay - I’m going to sit up…”
She didn’t move, sitting crouched right against him, so that her knees pushed into his arm, and she was half bent across him, face close to his.
“…you might need to give me some space, love.”
Her eyes widened at that, but she lifted herself and shuffled backwards again, with the same soft sliding noise on the dirt and grit of the concrete floor that he’d heard before.
This wasn’t going to be pleasant. Thinking about it, that’s worse than doing it… He managed to clench his stomach muscles and rise smoothly enough, though he swayed for a moment and closed his eyes again against the nausea. The back of his head thudded at him in protest, and he waited until everything had slowed down again, and he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to be sick.
“Okay,” he said, as much for himself as for the girl. “Okay, we’re going to have to get out of here. Think you can help with that?”
She nodded again, looking less frightened and more determined.
“Good girl. The first thing I’m going to do is see if I can get your gag off, alright? So you can tell me where we are and what happened.”
She frowned at that, gaze taking in his still-trussed body, until he managed to get himself to his knees and shuffled closer to her. She realised quickly enough what he was going to try then, and even leaned her face forward for him.
The gag was just an old piece of cloth - cotton he thought, richly impregnated with oil and God knew what, so that he could smell the stench of it as he moved closer to her. She was doing well to be conscious herself with that stretched under her nose.
“Good girl,” he said again, “Easy now…” He leaned in to her cheek, a strange parody of a polite kiss, and his lips brushed the soft skin of her as he grasped the cloth between his teeth and tugged it downwards. It shifted, but it didn’t loosen enough to free her, so he tried again, closer to her mouth, his lips brushing hers as he pulled the gag away. It came this time, the whole thing dropping from his mouth, the taste of it acrid on his tongue. When he looked up, without moving away, her beautiful blue eyes were lowered to watch him, and so he risked a quick triumphant smile, leaned in again, and gave her a quick kiss on the side of her pretty lips. “There,” he said, “All done. Well done.”
She sat back on her heels, still looking at him, and took a deep breath, then opened her mouth to speak, shaking her head. “Talk to me one more time as if I’m your bloody dog and I swear I’ll crown the other side of your head,” she said, and her accent was pure Liverpool.
Doyle was too taken aback at first to say anything - it was a coincidence, it had to be a coincidence.
“Sorry love,” he said at last, venturing another smile. “I thought you just might be scared by all this.” He tipped his head carefully, indicating their surroundings in general. “I can tell you’re not that kind of girl. You’re not related to a belligerent sod called Bodie, are you?”
He hadn’t expected any reaction really, though he’d hoped for puzzled amusement, but the girl’s eyes widened, and she rose onto her knees again, a strange expression on her face.
“You know Will?” she asked. “You know our Willie? Is this his fault?”
o0o
Ian dropped him off a couple of streets away and Bodie passed Doyle’s Capri parked near the corner of King Street as he made his way to The Dutch Arms. It was way past closing time so something must have been happening, even if it was just a lock-in. Bodie mentally rubbed his hands in glee. Good. He needed something to take his mind off Jenna, Jenna’s ridiculous schemes, and Doyle.
No, not Doyle. He hadn’t been thinking about Doyle. All that effort he’d gone to, getting them in the right place, the right time. All wasted. Bloody Jenna.
Doyle was nowhere to be seen at The Dutch Arms - not that Bodie had expected to see him straight away. After all, his job was to observe, not to be observed. He walked all around the building, moving quietly, listening and watching for signs of other people. Downstairs was in darkness. No lock-in, then. A couple of lights shone from the first floor. Was Cruiggan in one of those rooms? Who was he with? Had he shown up at all?
A cat jumped down from the high fence and dashed across the yard, sending a dustbin lid skidding to the ground. A man appeared at one of the windows and was pulled back quickly. It wasn’t Cruiggan but...
Bodie stilled, keeping to the shadows. He knew that face. That man Jenna had been arguing with outside the Wimpy, the one who’d walked off as soon as Bodie had appeared. Jenna had been her usual tight-lipped self about the argument. What had she called him? Morrie? No... Lawrie.
So much for taking his mind off Jenna... and where the bloody hell was Doyle?
The curtains were drawn again and the light switched off. Bodie took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. Coincidence? They were ten a penny in a life lived his way, but he had a nagging feeling about this one. A very big, very nagging feeling.
He eased out of the shadows, casting a wary eye over the pub. Apart from some twinkling fairy lights around a ground-floor window frame the place was in darkness. He made his way past beer crates and cardboard boxes and back out onto the street again.
He needed to call HQ, to see if Doyle had radioed in. He jogged down the road, splashing through puddles and grateful that the rain had eased off at last. He passed a phone box that had all of its panes of glass smashed, badly enough that he didn’t bother stopping, knowing from experience that the phone would be out of order too.
He stopped at the corner of King Street, looking up and down. Doyle’s car had a radio in it, but he would have locked up knowing it would be some time before he’d be back. Still… Bodie grinned to himself. Doyle wasn’t the only lock-breaker of the partnership. All he needed was a screwdriver and a coat hanger and he’d be in the Capri and ready for the off.
Trouble was, he had neither. Breaking a window would be quick but it would incur the wrath of Cowley. He could go back to the pub and look about for something to use...
No, there was a phone box in Cowper Street, near the parade of shops. He’d take a chance on that. He sprinted up the pavement, crossed into Danbury Road and turned right into Cowper Street. Fairy lights shimmered from every shop window, hoping to entice shoppers into spending their hard-earned cash, but the television screens in Radio Rentals were blank - too late for the late-night films and too early for open University.
The phone box was un-vandalised. There was a puddle in the corner which didn’t look at all like rainwater but the phone was in working order for which Bodie would have offered up a silent prayer had he been a religious man. He dialled HQ.
“CI5. How can I help?”
“This is 3.7. Has 4.5 called in this evening?”
“Haven’t heard from him since 2100, 3.7. Aren’t you with him?”
“I was unavoidably delayed.” It was the truth, but he still winced saying it. “I’ve been to the Dutch Arms but there’s no sign of him.”
“3.7!”
He straightened automatically on hearing Cowley’s voice. “Sir!”
“Your job as Doyle’s partner, Bodie, is to know where he is at all times! You might also like to know that your car has just been found at the river. I’m sending 6.1 to pick you up.”
“Yes, sir.”
He replaced the receiver and stepped out onto the pavement. He supposed he’d better get back to the pub. Doyle would be around somewhere if his Capri was still there. A few drops of rain fell on his face and he grimaced.
At least Murphy had a car.
o0o
Our Willie? He felt his own eyes widening in surprise, stared harder at the woman who knelt on the filthy floor in front of him. “You know…?” He checked himself. She was blonde - dyed blonde he realised, roots growing out darkly on top of her head - and very clearly all woman, with curves in all the right places, but for all the other differences her body had the same lithe, muscular stockiness that Bodie had, and her eyes… “You’re some relation of Bodie’s?”
“He’s me cousin,” she said. “Who are you? How do you know Will?” There was an edge of aggression to her voice that was all Bodie too, and Doyle was strangely warmed by it. Maybe it would be easier to get out of this than if she’d been… less.
“We work together,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Which means that maybe…”
“…they meant to kidnap Will and got me instead. Bloody Will!”
Doyle’s head was pounding, and he felt bruised and scraped raw all over, but he found himself smiling just the same. “Bloody Bodie,” he agreed. “You know, I think we’ve got a lot in common. So what’s your name then? I’m Ray - Ray Doyle.”
It was the girl’s turn to look surprised. “You’re Doyle? I thought you’d be bigger. I’m Jenna. Does this mean you can get us out of here?”
Doyle shrugged. Or get us killed, he thought, because even if it’d been his own Bodie kneeling in front of him, there was always the chance that these nutters - whoever they were - would prefer them dead rather than alive. “Maybe.” Thought you’d be bigger? “Course I can.”
He turned his attention to the room they were in, some kind of garage lit by a bare bulb hung from the ceiling, and lined all around with rough - and empty - wooden shelves that formed a solid workbench on three sides, interrupted by a door in one corner. There was no window, and of course the fourth wall, the main garage door, was firmly closed, but surely it would draw too much attention to have someone standing guard outside if they were in some simple house in the suburbs. They might get out of this yet. “First things first - I think I’ve got a knife in my front jeans pocket, if you turn around, d’you think you can reach it..?”
Jenna glanced down at him, then looked back up, raising a cynical eyebrow. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, you know.” Instead of moving towards him though, she sat down, bringing her legs in front of her. “But I think it would be easier…” She wriggled, moving from side to side, looking down for a moment, and hunching over on herself, and Doyle watched in puzzlement as she gave a sort of seated hop, and then looked up at him triumphantly. “…if I had my hands in front of me.” She leaned back again, and Doyle could suddenly see what she was doing - her tied hands now in front of her, under her legs. She drew her legs towards her chest, wriggled a bit more, and slid her feet over the top of them. “That’s better!”
“Well…” Doyle cleared his suddenly dry throat. “I’ve never seen Bodie do that.”
Jenna grinned at him, a wide beaming smile that lit up her eyes and was all Bodie too, and then reached down and began picking at the rope around her own ankles. “Hidden talents, our family.”
“You can say that again - I may be in love…”
Jenna looked up for a moment, face oddly serious for such a light joke. “I know you are. It’s alright, we’ll see him again.” She bent back to her task, leaving Doyle bewildered.
Who…? He shook his head at himself, wincing as the pounding cut through his thoughts again. There wasn’t time for cryptic comments - “Right… Look, did you see who it was snatched you? Any idea what’s going on?”
“Bastards!,” she said, the short, clipped northern sound of it vicious, but she didn’t stop what she was doing this time. “I was taking Bodie’s car back, and when I was stopped at the lights some bastard pulled me car door open and grabbed me into the passenger side. Then his bastard mate got in the driver’s seat and took off with us. “Bastards!“
“Not friends of yours, then?” Doyle said grimly. “I don’t suppose you knew them?”
“I might know some bad boys, but not bastards like that. There!“ With a final tug the rope fell apart around her feet, and she flexed them, pulling a face as she did so. “Alright, where’s that knife of yours?”
o0o
Bodie jogged back to The Dutch Arms, taking a slight detour to check that Doyle’s Capri was still there. Of course, it hadn’t moved. Standing silent and empty it somehow managed to look imposing even without the engine running and Doyle behind the wheel.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” Bodie muttered, as he circled the pub again, taking in anything out of place. There was a broken bottle near the base of a low wall - par for the course in a pub car park. The corner shop diagonally opposite had a downstairs window boarded up. There were tyre marks on the road that stopped just short of the zebra crossing. Two street lamps were out. A plastic drainpipe was coming away from a wall, where someone or something had knocked into it and dislodged the clip securing it. A tartan scarf lay in the dirt.
It could be anybody’s. He picked it up. It hadn’t been lying there long; it was wet through, but the dirt hadn’t been trodden in. He sniffed it. A faint aroma of Denim still lingered. It could be Doyle’s. It is Doyle’s.
A yellow Escort pulled up alongside him.
“If you want some time alone with that scarf you’re fondling I can circle round and come back,” Murphy offered through the open side window.
“It’s Doyle’s scarf,” Bodie replied, absently.
“The offer still stands.”
Bodie didn’t answer straightaway and when he looked up he saw that Murphy was watching with a knowing look on his face. “Get in the bloody car, Bodie,” was all he said.
Bodie went round to the passenger side and got in, slamming open the glove box and shoving the scarf roughly inside.
“We’ll find him, Bodie.”
“I should have been here.”
“You couldn’t help having car trouble. How did you get out, anyway?”
“Out? Of the car? There’s these things called doors, Murph. You pull on the handle and they open and you get out of the car that way.”
Murphy glanced at him. “You’re soaked through. Thought you’d been in the river.”
“No, I haven’t been in the river. Have you been at Cowley’s Scotch again? It’s pissing it down out there, that’s why I’m wet.”
Murphy made an exasperated noise. “Your car was found in the river. It’s an easy assumption to make.”
“Not in the river. At the river.”
Murphy was shaking his head. “I saw it, mate. Watched them dragging it out.”
Bodie cursed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! They would have had divers there, though? Did they find any bodies?”
Murphy hesitated and Bodie yelled, “Did they find any fucking bodies, Murph?” He thumped the dashboard out of frustration. Jenna knew how to handle the Capri. She’d been driving cars since she was fifteen years old. Hell, she’d been a getaway driver on a couple of occasions. There was no way she would have lost control.
The fear he’d felt when he’d found Doyle’s scarf and knew he was missing now doubled.
Murphy looked concerned. “They dragged it out with a tow truck from the local garage. I didn’t see any divers, but then Cowley sent me to get you once you’d called in. Who was driving it if it wasn’t you?”
“Jenna.”
“A bird?”
“My cousin.”
“Why...? No, don’t even bother answering that, mate. It’s between you and Cowley and the less I know the better. You don’t think she drove it in, do you?”
“One way to find out,” Bodie said, tight-lipped. I will drive your car into the river and let the little fishies play houses with it. She wouldn’t... “Take me there.”
“The car’s gone-”
“Murph, do me a favour. Just shut up and take me there.”
Bodie pressed his lips together, not trusting himself to speak any more. Murphy, good friend that he was, nodded. “Okay. But you’re explaining it to the Cow.”
o0o
The feeling came back to Doyle’s hands in a prickling rush, so that he winced and shook them, rubbed them hard against the rough denim of his jeans, wanting it over with fast. His feet weren’t so bad, but even so it was precious seconds before he could stand up, seconds in which their captors could burst through the door, knock him back down to his knees.
Jenna was already up, making her way along each wall and shelf in case there was anything they could use to get them out and away - or at least that was what Doyle assumed. She was enough like Bodie that she could just as well be looking for a weapon for when the men came back. Two of them, Jenna had said, and he knew that one of them was Lawrence Ashton, convicted thug, and not apparently in a forgiving mood. He thought they’d seen the back of him when they had him locked up for a good long stretch on solid evidence of that Irish arms bust - and that poor sod he’d kneecapped along the way. Four years wasn’t nearly long enough when the judge had said ten. They’d earned a scotch each from the old man after standing up in court for three days on the trot for it, one of their first results that had been.
Only some idiot had decided that blowing someone’s knees away, and helping others to maim dozens more, was only worth four years of Ashton’s own life.
Joining Jenna in her search, clenching his teeth against every step as his ankles protested, he tried to remember everything he’d ever known about Lawrie Ashton.
“Wire!” Jenna’s voice cut through his thoughts, soft and urgent and pleased. She was crouching in a corner, stretching her arm under the lowest shelf, and leaning slightly backwards rather than forwards for better reach, her other hand on the floor behind her for balance.
Definitely all woman, Doyle thought absently, watching her contortions. Not really like Bodie at all. “They train you in the circus, did they?” he asked, not surprised when she ignored him in favour of her goal, which was apparently tucked as far into the corner as it could be.
“There!” She righted herself and stood without apparent effort, brandishing a twist of thin wire that had clearly seen better days. Would it last long enough for him to pick the lock with it? Maybe… Jenna was starting to straighten it out, rust flaking to the ground, and he reached out for it.
“Right, let’s have a…”
“‘ang on, ‘ang on - do you know what you’re doing with this?” she asked, snatching it back from his hand. “I’ll have us out that door in five seconds if you gimme some space, you know.”
“They don’t teach that in the circus,” Doyle observed, holding up placating hands when she frowned at him. “If you’re sure you can do it…” Her frown turned into a glare, and he turned back to his own search, eyeing the garage door thoughtfully. Would it be better to try and get through there, or should they chance the house? It would make more noise, but it might give them a better head start, and in the absence of errant crowbars and hammers, a head start might be all they had on their side.
He turned his face upwards instead, in case there was anything hanging from the exposed roofing timbers, unconsciously bouncing on his feet to warm them up more quickly, flexing muscles ready for when they were needed. There was nothing up there that he could see.
“Got it!”
He spun around to find that Jenna had taken all decisions out of his hands, already bending to the lock at the door to the house, fingers on the handle ready to pull it open and let them out. Shit - he wasn’t ready, they weren’t ready…
“Hold on…” he began, and at the same time the door was pushed open with a sudden shove from the other side, surprising Jenna so that she fell to the floor with a cry, two men looming above her - neither of them, Doyle noted in the split second that their own confusion gave him, Ashton.
“What the hell…?” one of them began, the younger man who’d been in front, half turning his head away from Doyle to look at Jenna, and that was all Doyle needed. He’d taken a step towards them even as the door opened, put some power behind the next one to turn it into a leap without thinking, and kicked out, catching him on the jaw and knocking him backwards.
From the corner of his eye Doyle could see the second man duck past them, reaching out for Jenna and making a grab for her wrist, but then his own victim was rebounding from the wall and coming at him, and he reached out himself to take control, turning a vicious punch with one hand, using his other to pull the man to him, bringing his leg up in a hard, winding blow to the chest and stomach, then pushing him away again with his own punch so that he was out for the count.
Jenna - Bodie would never forgive him… He spun around, planting his feet firmly so that he could launch in whatever direction was safest, only to see Jenna not only back on her feet, but leaping onto the other man’s back and clamping her teeth firmly onto his neck. The man let out a scream of surprise and pain, and started staggering back towards the wall. Doyle yelled out, and Jenna released him, so that he stumbled with the freedom from her weight, one hand to his neck, and Doyle was able to aim a solid kick at him, pushing him back, and then following through with yet another blow to the head that twisted him around and down, to lie unmoving on the floor.
When he was sure the man wasn’t moving, had checked the other with a quick glance behind him, Doyle looked up again, to where Jenna was grimacing and wiping blood from her mouth. He was pretty sure it wasn’t hers. Something must have shown in his face, because her own expression turned from distaste to defiance, and she tilted her chin up.
“Wha’?” she asked belligerently. “You try getting the drop on someone twice your size without bendin’ the rules, then you can look at me like tha’!
Like Bodie, he thought irrelevantly, her accent thicker the less she was thinking about it. “Right now,” he said, “I don’t care if you gouged his eyes out - we’ve got to get out of here.” He moved over to the door that had been pushed closed again in the struggle, pressed his ear close to listen for sounds behind it.
“Wha’ for?” Jenna asked. “We’ve got both the bastards!”
Doyle looked up and caught her eye, shaking his head. “We might have got the blokes who snatched you - but these aren’t the blokes who snatched me - and at least one of them is a bigger bastard than either of your lot.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly. Now…” he held up a hand to forestall anything else she might say, leaning back to the door to listen again, and for a wonder she obeyed, though he could feel her stepping closer to him, could almost feel the same electricity from it that he felt from Bodie’s presence.
Nothing - they had to risk it.
He ventured a second risk, taking Jenna’s hand and pulling her further behind him so that she would be sheltered from anything that might be waiting behind the door for them, and then he turned the handle, slowly, as quietly as he could.
Still nothing, so he inched it open, peering through the gap to what seemed to be an empty hallway, dimly lit and bare of anything except two other doorways - one that was clearly a front door, with a semicircle of stained glass at the top, a modern latch, and a key hanging heavily from the older keyhole underneath it. The other door was halfway along the corridor, and there was a strip of light shining golden underneath it, and as they crept closer, the muffled sound of voices.
Jenna was following him closely, quietly and without protest, and he turned to catch her eye again, lifting a finger to his lips in unnecessary warning, nodding at the door. She nodded back, and he took a cautious step, wary of creaking floorboards under the thin carpet they trod along, of the chance that whoever was in there would choose now to come to the door, to go to the bog, to check up on their companions.
Another step, and they were past the door, another two and they were almost there…
There was no light beyond the stained glass, no glow of daylight, dawn, or even a nearby streetlight, which was odd, but it was something to deal with when they were out there, and Doyle let go of Jenna to reach up to the top lock, turning the latch and sliding the catch down so that it held. He paused, listening again, hearing only Jenna’s soft breath now, just hard and fast enough to betray that she was scared, and he wondered if she could hear his own as his heart pounded away in what felt like double-quick time. He took the key in one hand, ready to turn it if need be, twisted the doorknob with the other, and pulled.
The door opened towards him, letting in a shiver of cold December air, and he took a relieved breath, letting it fill his lungs. Behind him Jenna put a hand on his back, as if to push him through, and he opened the door wide enough to let her slide past, then pulled at the key to take it with him, to lock the door behind them.
It wouldn’t come, somehow stuck in the lock, and he cursed, but let it go. If they got far enough away before their absence was discovered they wouldn’t need the delay. Jenna was halfway down the path already, and he pulled the door quietly closed and began to follow her - promptly stumbling on a step that he hadn’t seen, his hand reaching out to save himself and smashing into a rubbish bin half-hidden and leaning behind some kind of bush in a pot, so that the lid slid off and clattered onto the paving stones.
“Come on, will you! Jenna was shouting, and grabbing his arm, and he scrambled to his feet even as he heard a door slam and footsteps pounding through the house behind them. Without a glance, because above all he needed to get Jenna away, had to get her to safety, he turned the scramble to a run, dragging Jenna along behind him, into the absolute black of the night.
...cont./
Click here for Part Two (and trailer).
Where All This Started
by HambelandJemima and Slantedlight
Something was wrong with Bodie. Doyle watched him through slitted eyes from the sofa, the way he gathered the detritus of their meal together; plates clanked into a pile, cutlery jangled on top, a bottle of brown sauce and one of ketchup in his other hand, and then off to the kitchen.
It wasn’t that Bodie never cleared away after they’d eaten together - but he never did it without at least a token complaint, and a quiet Bodie was usually something to worry about. He’d been in a strange mood all night in fact, either too hail-fellow-well-met and matey jokes, or oddly serious and… quiet. As if, Doyle thought suddenly, he was waiting for something, and didn’t know whether it was going to be a good something or the kind of something that required gritted teeth and clenched fists. He’d been funny about coming over in the first place, come to think of it, as if…
Bodie’s head poked around the door, eyebrows raised, jovial twinkle working overtime again. “Cup of tea, darling?” he asked, falsetto, and then reverted to normal again. “But I can’t find the Penguins.”
“That’s because you ate ‘em all last time you were here. And yeah, go on then.”
“I left three on the refrigerator - and you pretend you don’t eat chocolate!” He vanished again, and Doyle heard the snap of the kettle being switched on, listened to the ceramic thump of the mugs on the counter, the fridge being opened for the milk.
Eventually he appeared again, a mug in either hand and a packet tucked under one arm. “Abbey Crunch!” he said, leaning over the sofa and letting it drop onto the cushion. “That the best you can do?” He put the mugs down, half-hesitated, and then sat down on the sofa himself, right beside Doyle, cast a quick glance at him and then away again.
“Alright,” Doyle began. “Spit it out then. What’s got -”
The telephone rang, the red telephone, the CI5 telephone, and he frowned at it, tempted to ignore it. Bodie was looking like a man reprieved and a man ready to hang himself at the same time.
“Leave it, Ray…”
He couldn’t leave it - it could be important… He leapt up with a glare in Bodie’s direction, crossing to the side table in quick strides, and lifted the receiver. “Doyle.”
“Call for three-seven,” came the clipped tones of Dorothea from the switchboard. “Do you know his whereabouts, four-five?”
“He’s here,” he said, just as shortly. It was their night off, for God’s sake… “Who is it, a grass?”
“She wouldn’t say, but if it’s not you can tell Bodie…”
She. “Yeah, got it. Thanks.” Maybe it really was a grass. “Put her through, love.”
There was a click against his ear, then the slightly crackling connection came in. “Is Bodie there?” A woman’s voice - a young woman’s voice, and suddenly everything was clear.
“Hold on.” He frowned again, but stretched the phone towards Bodie. “It’s for you, hotshot.”
“For me?” Bodie’s face was a picture of puzzled innocence, and Doyle didn’t believe it for one minute. This was what his great lump of a partner had been fretting about all evening, whoever the bird was on the end of the line.
So much for their quiet night in, something Doyle had been looking forward to for days, since Bodie had first suggested it. It had been ruined three times in a row by Cowley and whichever minister had been making demands of him this time. A quiet night in, he’d thought, just the two of them with the telly, some wholesome home-made food for a change, maybe the late night film if it was half decent. He’d stocked up on beers, even managed apple crumble and custard for pudding - one of Bodie’s favourites, obviously, all stodge and comfort. Fruit salad would have been…
Comfort - that’s what he’d been missing tonight, the comfort of it! He clicked his finger in realisation, rolled his eyes at Bodie when he looked quizzically over from the phone. Whoever the girl was, she was chattering away like a magpie, and Bodie was looking bemused - but sort of soft and affectionate too, twining the phone cord round and around his fingers. Utterly engrossed.
Bodie was supposed to have been engrossed in what they’d been doing tonight, all that relaxation after a hard couple of weeks, winding down in undemanding company that just… that just knew what it was all like. The comfort of just being the two of them together, without being shot at or shouted at, or standing in the freezing cold wind or rain or whatever December was deciding to throw at them.
Somewhere warm and comfortable and just the two of them.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Bodie was saying now, flicking a quick look at Doyle and then turning away to speak more quietly into the receiver. “Yeah. Half-ten then. Alright, see you, kid.”
“Still at school is she?” he asked when Bodie finally hung up and turned around again.
“Eh?”
He nodded to the phone. “Hope she’s out of sixth form at least, or Cowley’ll ‘ave something to say.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow at him, then took himself over to the sideboard where Doyle kept his drinks. “Sniffter?” he asked, plummy as he could be in a single word, pouring two glasses of scotch anyway, and bringing one over. He didn’t sit beside Doyle this time, dropping onto the armchair instead, and staring vaguely back at the television, where John Simpson was winding up for the night.
“Go on then, who is she?”
“She, Raymond, is the cat’s mother - and you know what happened to the cat.”
It wasn’t like Bodie to be coy about his women either - the last time that happened it had been that Marikka bird… hang about.
“Ten thirty?”
Bodie was looking at him with resignation. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“We’ve got the court booked!”
“Can’t be helped...” he said, but there was a smirk to his lips, and that coy look again.
It bloody well could be helped, Doyle thought, swallowing the rest of his whisky in a single, harsh mouthful and standing up. He’d had enough, suddenly, of the whole surreal evening. If Bodie wanted to chuck him over for some leggy blonde then why should it bother him?
He was going to bed.
“Right then,” he said. “I’m off. Want to catch the market tomorrow morning and I won’t do that sittin’ up with you all night, will I?”
“Ray...” Bodie was getting up too now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night at the pub then. Don’t be late.” Bodie could turn the box off and see himself out. He put his glass down on the table, probably harder than he needed to, and strode out of the room.
o0o
The high street was quiet when Bodie arrived, so it was easy to see Jenna waiting outside the Wimpy as they’d arranged. A man was with her, his back to the road, and they appeared to be arguing. As Bodie pulled up the man stormed off with long, angry strides, leaving Jenna looking rattled.
“Are you ok?” Bodie asked her, getting out of the car. He walked round to the pavement, still watching the man. There was something familiar about the way he walked. Someone he knew? “Who was that?”
Jenna followed his gaze. “Just someone who wanted me to do some work for him. I told him no, I’m retired.” She gave a shrug. “He didn’t like it.”
“What sort of work? What’s his name?”
“What is this, an interrogation?” Her Scouse accent was more pronounced when she was annoyed.
Bodie turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. “Work that I no longer do,” she answered, reluctantly, “and I didn’t catch his name ‘cos I’m not interested.” She smiled at him. It was her patented fake, innocent smile and Bodie wasn’t taken in by it at all. “Give me the keys, Will, I don’t want to be late.”
“Name,” he insisted, ignoring her outstretched hand.
She sighed as if Bodie was asking the impossible and when he didn’t move, she sighed again and dropped her hand. “Alright. His name was Larry. He didn’t give me his last name and I didn’t ask. I don’t want no trouble, Will. I just want to borrow your car to get to a job interview. Please.”
Bodie thought about it. “I could drive you. I don’t have to be at work ‘til this evening.”
She gave him a withering look, the sort of look she used to give him when they were kids and he’d said something extremely stupid. “How’s that gonna look, eh? Like I can’t even drive me own car-”
“It’s not your car,” Bodie pointed out.
“But I’ve been driving since me legs have been long enough to reach the pedals. I swear, Will, if you do anything to bugger up this interview I will drive your car into the river and let the little fishies play house with it.”
“It’s an official CI5 car and if you do that, you’d better make sure you run far away from it,” Bodie said through gritted teeth, “because the Cow will break those long legs of yours if I don’t do it first,”
She glared at him. “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe I’ve got a real interview for a legitimate job.”
“You’re not exactly dressed for one,” Bodie pointed out. “Don’t you normally wear make-up if you want to impress someone? Nail varnish? Make a bit of effort with your hair?”
He was still thinking about the bloke that Jenna had been talking to. What was it that seemed familiar? Something in the roll of those shoulders as the man walked away…
Jenna huffed in annoyance, rummaging through her handbag. “Bloody cheek. Like you’re an expert on women. We don’t all have to look like a soddin’ supermodel. ‘Ere, take a look at this.” She hauled out an envelope and thrust it in his hands.
Bodie gingerly pulled out the letter and read it. It looked genuine. Addressed to Jenna, it was from Brand’s Garage inviting her to a job interview for a junior mechanic position.
He grinned, relieved, feeling a little stupid as he caught her eye. “Alright, I can see why you don’t want to get all dolled up.”
“They’d laugh me out the garage,” she sniffed in a haughty manner. “But if I’m driving your car I can say it’s mine and they’ll be dead impressed with it.” She dropped the cocky attitude. “Well…. I won’t say it’s mine, but I’ll imply it. Bodie, this job is as good as mine! I’ve got the qualifications and I’ve got the references, and Vic’s put in a good word for me an’ all. This is my chance to be respectable, like you always said I should be. I want this! Please… trust me with your car. I promise faithfully I’ll return it by lunchtime. On me mother’s grave.”
That wasn’t a promise Jenna made lightly. Bodie gave a nod and handed back the envelope after tucking the letter back in safely. “Give ‘em hell, our kid,” he said.
She smiled and leaned forward to brush a kiss over his cheek as she took the keys out of his hand. “Thanks, Will. You’re a diamond.”
Bodie grimaced, already regretting his decision as she started up the Capri and took off down the high street with no regard for speed limits or the rubber on his tyres.
o0o
It was raining, and everyone who had any sense had retreated indoors, away from the December weather and the misery of the week before Christmas, were no doubt curled up in front of the box watching Last of the Summer Wine or Bob Monkhouse or whatever idiot was on the goggle-box tonight. Not, Doyle scowled, this idiot - oh no, he, this mug was out in the middle of it all, covering for Bodie again. Bloody Bodie, who you knew, you just knew, wasn’t having car trouble at all, but was tucked up in a cosy bed with that bird he was shagging.
He shivered as yet another huge raindrop fell from the gutter above him, straight down his collar and onto his neck. And you knew, didn’t you - he knew - that since he wasn’t here to start with, bloody Bodie probably wasn’t going to turn out the whole bloody night, leaving muggins to pick up the pieces again. Not that there were many pieces out here to start with - it had been a slim hope that Cruiggan would show up at all, why the hell Cowley had decided it was worth good agents’ time... Bloody Cowley.
There was a flash of golden light as the door of The Dutch Arms swung open wide, and a raucous group of women spilled onto the street, half a dozen of them in short skirts and high heels, screeching with laughter and trying to open enough umbrellas to keep them all dry. Behind them Doyle caught a glimpse of Thursday night festivity, red and green tinsel twined around the bar, a fruit machine flashing away in a corner. A warm, dry, comfortable fug, pints of beer and optics gleaming with brandy and vodka…
Bloody Bodie. He was going to take great pleasure in wringing his bloody skiving neck when he caught up with him…
“Well if it isn’t Ray Doyle!”
Doyle swung around, disconcerted. He knew that voice, a voice from the past that was - but where the hell…?
“You fucking bastard,” said the voice, and there was a sudden sharp pain against his head, and he was falling, and then there was nothing.
o0o
Bodie pounded on the door, not even bothering with the doorbell. He was cold and soaked through, and if anyone else gave him the run-around tonight they’d be eating their Christmas turkey through a straw.
He heard footsteps on the stairs and redoubled his efforts, wincing when the porch light came on and assaulted his eyeballs. The door opened just wide enough for him to see an eye and a nose and he jammed his foot in the gap at the bottom.
“Where’s Jenna?” he demanded, leaning his shoulder against the door.
“Christ almighty. Do you know what bloody time it is?” The voice sounded irritated, probably about having had to get out of a warm bed rather than it being past midnight. “Move your foot, you bloody cretin, so I can get the chain off.”
Bodie backed off and stood glowering for the few seconds it took. He swore Jenna would be the death of him, with her hare-brained schemes and atrocious taste in men. The next time she wanted his help she could bloody well go and jump.
The door opened and he pushed past, striding through the hall and into the darkened living room. The Christmas tree stood forbiddingly in the corner, sinister and silent without its twinkling fairy lights. It was bigger than last year’s, Bodie thought, probably to accommodate the ever-growing pile of presents underneath.
“Hello, Bradders, sorry to get you up at this godawful hour. That’s quite alright, Bodie, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for waking up half the street and giving my neighbours even more reason to bend my ear about the dodgy company I keep.”
Bodie glared at his cousin who stood in the doorway, unflinching. They were evenly matched in height and with the same shade of blue in their eyes that both their mothers had inherited from the Kilduff side of the family. Ian was leaner, though, wiry rather than muscular, but still not a man to be pushed around, even in his pyjamas. He was much like Doyle in that respect.
The thought of his partner - and the fact that Bodie had had to lie to him again - sharpened his voice. “Where’s Jenna?”
“No idea.” Ian moved away from the doorway, flicking the light switch on and sitting on the arm of what Bodie knew was his favourite chair. “Is that everything, mate? Only I’ve got work in the morning. A good ol’ nine to five job. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“Don’t muck me around,” Bodie snarled. “She’s got my car and I want it back.”
“Your car? The Capri?” There was amusement in Ian’s voice. “How are you gonna explain that one?”
“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice hissed from the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll wake the kids if you’re not careful.”
“It’s Bodie. He’s lost Jenna. And his car.”
“Oh, for crying out loud....” Sheila came into the living room, wrapping her dressing gown tightly around her. She was a small, slim woman with dark brown hair that she currently wore in a long plait down her back. “Bodie, you’re soaked through! For God’s sake, don’t you men ever notice these things?”
Bodie gritted his teeth against her concern. “You must have some idea where she is,” he said to both of them.
Ian looked at his wife and shrugged. “You know her usual haunts and hiding places as well as we do,” he said to Bodie. “I assume you’ve tried them all?”
“All the ones I could think of.” He spun away from the pair of them, knowing he looked furious, knowing it wasn’t their fault. “Damn it!”
“Have a cup of tea and get out of those wet things,” Sheila said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
“I don’t have time. I’m already late for work.”
“Then a few more minutes isn’t going to make any difference. Ian’s got something you can change into and a cup of tea will warm you up before you go back out.”
She left the room before Bodie could protest any more. “Better do as she says, mate,” Ian said, getting up. “We can look for her tomorrow when it’s daylight.”
“You’re working tomorrow,” Bodie pointed out, struggling out of his sodden jacket.
“I’ll call in sick. Family’s more important. I’ll go and get those clothes for you.”
“Just hope it’s not going to be too late tomorrow,” Bodie muttered, but he said it to an empty room.
Doyle was going to be so pissed off with him.
o0o
Doyle came round to a half-muffled squeaking and squealing that he thought might just be what would kill him. It sliced into his headache like a knife, and he scrunched his eyes against the noise and the pain, turning his head away. His cheek scraped across something hard and cold and covered in grit, so that he jerked his head back and winced yet again. Where the fuck was he? What had…?
It came back to him slowly but surely as he lay, breathing carefully in and out, trying not to do anything that would bring back the pain. Ashton - he remembered seeing Ashton, out of the blue, and just before he’d been knocked out by whatever other bastard had been with him. Not Cruiggan, not the man he’d actually been looking out for, apparently oblivious to anyone else, but Lawrence bloody Ashton, clearly let out of the Scrubs early, and without any warning to those who might like to know. And Christ, the Cow was going to have a fit, no Cruiggan, no Bodie and now no bloody Doyle to report in tomorrow either.
The noise, he realised suddenly, had stopped, but it had been replaced by a quieter sound, a scraping and shushing noise that his brain couldn’t quite place - and whatever it was, it was coming towards him, slowly and steadily.
He had to open his eyes. He was tied up, could feel the rope tight around his wrists and ankles, but they hadn’t gagged him. He swallowed without moisture, braced himself for whatever was out there, and managed to raise one eyelid enough to see dim electric light, then the other, and to focus…
A pair of deep blue eyes was gazing straight into his. For a moment he thought it was alright - Bodie, it’s Bodie… - and then he realised that everything else about the face was all wrong - darker skin, paler, perfectly arched eyebrows, longer nose… and it was a woman. But the eyes - the eyes looking at him in concern were so like Bodie’s eyes that he only let his gaze flick over the rest of her - tied up, just as he was, but also gagged - and then let himself look straight back into them. She was a prisoner, just as he was.
“You al-” he began, but his voice came out a thin rasp, so he closed his eyes, swallowed once more, and tried again. “You alright, love?”
The girl nodded slowly, then her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head instead, though she didn’t actually start to cry again.
“Is there anyone in here with us?” he asked, to avoid having to look behind him and around before he’d found his balance and his courage, and she shook her head again.
“Okay - I’m going to sit up…”
She didn’t move, sitting crouched right against him, so that her knees pushed into his arm, and she was half bent across him, face close to his.
“…you might need to give me some space, love.”
Her eyes widened at that, but she lifted herself and shuffled backwards again, with the same soft sliding noise on the dirt and grit of the concrete floor that he’d heard before.
This wasn’t going to be pleasant. Thinking about it, that’s worse than doing it… He managed to clench his stomach muscles and rise smoothly enough, though he swayed for a moment and closed his eyes again against the nausea. The back of his head thudded at him in protest, and he waited until everything had slowed down again, and he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to be sick.
“Okay,” he said, as much for himself as for the girl. “Okay, we’re going to have to get out of here. Think you can help with that?”
She nodded again, looking less frightened and more determined.
“Good girl. The first thing I’m going to do is see if I can get your gag off, alright? So you can tell me where we are and what happened.”
She frowned at that, gaze taking in his still-trussed body, until he managed to get himself to his knees and shuffled closer to her. She realised quickly enough what he was going to try then, and even leaned her face forward for him.
The gag was just an old piece of cloth - cotton he thought, richly impregnated with oil and God knew what, so that he could smell the stench of it as he moved closer to her. She was doing well to be conscious herself with that stretched under her nose.
“Good girl,” he said again, “Easy now…” He leaned in to her cheek, a strange parody of a polite kiss, and his lips brushed the soft skin of her as he grasped the cloth between his teeth and tugged it downwards. It shifted, but it didn’t loosen enough to free her, so he tried again, closer to her mouth, his lips brushing hers as he pulled the gag away. It came this time, the whole thing dropping from his mouth, the taste of it acrid on his tongue. When he looked up, without moving away, her beautiful blue eyes were lowered to watch him, and so he risked a quick triumphant smile, leaned in again, and gave her a quick kiss on the side of her pretty lips. “There,” he said, “All done. Well done.”
She sat back on her heels, still looking at him, and took a deep breath, then opened her mouth to speak, shaking her head. “Talk to me one more time as if I’m your bloody dog and I swear I’ll crown the other side of your head,” she said, and her accent was pure Liverpool.
Doyle was too taken aback at first to say anything - it was a coincidence, it had to be a coincidence.
“Sorry love,” he said at last, venturing another smile. “I thought you just might be scared by all this.” He tipped his head carefully, indicating their surroundings in general. “I can tell you’re not that kind of girl. You’re not related to a belligerent sod called Bodie, are you?”
He hadn’t expected any reaction really, though he’d hoped for puzzled amusement, but the girl’s eyes widened, and she rose onto her knees again, a strange expression on her face.
“You know Will?” she asked. “You know our Willie? Is this his fault?”
o0o
Ian dropped him off a couple of streets away and Bodie passed Doyle’s Capri parked near the corner of King Street as he made his way to The Dutch Arms. It was way past closing time so something must have been happening, even if it was just a lock-in. Bodie mentally rubbed his hands in glee. Good. He needed something to take his mind off Jenna, Jenna’s ridiculous schemes, and Doyle.
No, not Doyle. He hadn’t been thinking about Doyle. All that effort he’d gone to, getting them in the right place, the right time. All wasted. Bloody Jenna.
Doyle was nowhere to be seen at The Dutch Arms - not that Bodie had expected to see him straight away. After all, his job was to observe, not to be observed. He walked all around the building, moving quietly, listening and watching for signs of other people. Downstairs was in darkness. No lock-in, then. A couple of lights shone from the first floor. Was Cruiggan in one of those rooms? Who was he with? Had he shown up at all?
A cat jumped down from the high fence and dashed across the yard, sending a dustbin lid skidding to the ground. A man appeared at one of the windows and was pulled back quickly. It wasn’t Cruiggan but...
Bodie stilled, keeping to the shadows. He knew that face. That man Jenna had been arguing with outside the Wimpy, the one who’d walked off as soon as Bodie had appeared. Jenna had been her usual tight-lipped self about the argument. What had she called him? Morrie? No... Lawrie.
So much for taking his mind off Jenna... and where the bloody hell was Doyle?
The curtains were drawn again and the light switched off. Bodie took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. Coincidence? They were ten a penny in a life lived his way, but he had a nagging feeling about this one. A very big, very nagging feeling.
He eased out of the shadows, casting a wary eye over the pub. Apart from some twinkling fairy lights around a ground-floor window frame the place was in darkness. He made his way past beer crates and cardboard boxes and back out onto the street again.
He needed to call HQ, to see if Doyle had radioed in. He jogged down the road, splashing through puddles and grateful that the rain had eased off at last. He passed a phone box that had all of its panes of glass smashed, badly enough that he didn’t bother stopping, knowing from experience that the phone would be out of order too.
He stopped at the corner of King Street, looking up and down. Doyle’s car had a radio in it, but he would have locked up knowing it would be some time before he’d be back. Still… Bodie grinned to himself. Doyle wasn’t the only lock-breaker of the partnership. All he needed was a screwdriver and a coat hanger and he’d be in the Capri and ready for the off.
Trouble was, he had neither. Breaking a window would be quick but it would incur the wrath of Cowley. He could go back to the pub and look about for something to use...
No, there was a phone box in Cowper Street, near the parade of shops. He’d take a chance on that. He sprinted up the pavement, crossed into Danbury Road and turned right into Cowper Street. Fairy lights shimmered from every shop window, hoping to entice shoppers into spending their hard-earned cash, but the television screens in Radio Rentals were blank - too late for the late-night films and too early for open University.
The phone box was un-vandalised. There was a puddle in the corner which didn’t look at all like rainwater but the phone was in working order for which Bodie would have offered up a silent prayer had he been a religious man. He dialled HQ.
“CI5. How can I help?”
“This is 3.7. Has 4.5 called in this evening?”
“Haven’t heard from him since 2100, 3.7. Aren’t you with him?”
“I was unavoidably delayed.” It was the truth, but he still winced saying it. “I’ve been to the Dutch Arms but there’s no sign of him.”
“3.7!”
He straightened automatically on hearing Cowley’s voice. “Sir!”
“Your job as Doyle’s partner, Bodie, is to know where he is at all times! You might also like to know that your car has just been found at the river. I’m sending 6.1 to pick you up.”
“Yes, sir.”
He replaced the receiver and stepped out onto the pavement. He supposed he’d better get back to the pub. Doyle would be around somewhere if his Capri was still there. A few drops of rain fell on his face and he grimaced.
At least Murphy had a car.
o0o
Our Willie? He felt his own eyes widening in surprise, stared harder at the woman who knelt on the filthy floor in front of him. “You know…?” He checked himself. She was blonde - dyed blonde he realised, roots growing out darkly on top of her head - and very clearly all woman, with curves in all the right places, but for all the other differences her body had the same lithe, muscular stockiness that Bodie had, and her eyes… “You’re some relation of Bodie’s?”
“He’s me cousin,” she said. “Who are you? How do you know Will?” There was an edge of aggression to her voice that was all Bodie too, and Doyle was strangely warmed by it. Maybe it would be easier to get out of this than if she’d been… less.
“We work together,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Which means that maybe…”
“…they meant to kidnap Will and got me instead. Bloody Will!”
Doyle’s head was pounding, and he felt bruised and scraped raw all over, but he found himself smiling just the same. “Bloody Bodie,” he agreed. “You know, I think we’ve got a lot in common. So what’s your name then? I’m Ray - Ray Doyle.”
It was the girl’s turn to look surprised. “You’re Doyle? I thought you’d be bigger. I’m Jenna. Does this mean you can get us out of here?”
Doyle shrugged. Or get us killed, he thought, because even if it’d been his own Bodie kneeling in front of him, there was always the chance that these nutters - whoever they were - would prefer them dead rather than alive. “Maybe.” Thought you’d be bigger? “Course I can.”
He turned his attention to the room they were in, some kind of garage lit by a bare bulb hung from the ceiling, and lined all around with rough - and empty - wooden shelves that formed a solid workbench on three sides, interrupted by a door in one corner. There was no window, and of course the fourth wall, the main garage door, was firmly closed, but surely it would draw too much attention to have someone standing guard outside if they were in some simple house in the suburbs. They might get out of this yet. “First things first - I think I’ve got a knife in my front jeans pocket, if you turn around, d’you think you can reach it..?”
Jenna glanced down at him, then looked back up, raising a cynical eyebrow. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, you know.” Instead of moving towards him though, she sat down, bringing her legs in front of her. “But I think it would be easier…” She wriggled, moving from side to side, looking down for a moment, and hunching over on herself, and Doyle watched in puzzlement as she gave a sort of seated hop, and then looked up at him triumphantly. “…if I had my hands in front of me.” She leaned back again, and Doyle could suddenly see what she was doing - her tied hands now in front of her, under her legs. She drew her legs towards her chest, wriggled a bit more, and slid her feet over the top of them. “That’s better!”
“Well…” Doyle cleared his suddenly dry throat. “I’ve never seen Bodie do that.”
Jenna grinned at him, a wide beaming smile that lit up her eyes and was all Bodie too, and then reached down and began picking at the rope around her own ankles. “Hidden talents, our family.”
“You can say that again - I may be in love…”
Jenna looked up for a moment, face oddly serious for such a light joke. “I know you are. It’s alright, we’ll see him again.” She bent back to her task, leaving Doyle bewildered.
Who…? He shook his head at himself, wincing as the pounding cut through his thoughts again. There wasn’t time for cryptic comments - “Right… Look, did you see who it was snatched you? Any idea what’s going on?”
“Bastards!,” she said, the short, clipped northern sound of it vicious, but she didn’t stop what she was doing this time. “I was taking Bodie’s car back, and when I was stopped at the lights some bastard pulled me car door open and grabbed me into the passenger side. Then his bastard mate got in the driver’s seat and took off with us. “Bastards!“
“Not friends of yours, then?” Doyle said grimly. “I don’t suppose you knew them?”
“I might know some bad boys, but not bastards like that. There!“ With a final tug the rope fell apart around her feet, and she flexed them, pulling a face as she did so. “Alright, where’s that knife of yours?”
o0o
Bodie jogged back to The Dutch Arms, taking a slight detour to check that Doyle’s Capri was still there. Of course, it hadn’t moved. Standing silent and empty it somehow managed to look imposing even without the engine running and Doyle behind the wheel.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” Bodie muttered, as he circled the pub again, taking in anything out of place. There was a broken bottle near the base of a low wall - par for the course in a pub car park. The corner shop diagonally opposite had a downstairs window boarded up. There were tyre marks on the road that stopped just short of the zebra crossing. Two street lamps were out. A plastic drainpipe was coming away from a wall, where someone or something had knocked into it and dislodged the clip securing it. A tartan scarf lay in the dirt.
It could be anybody’s. He picked it up. It hadn’t been lying there long; it was wet through, but the dirt hadn’t been trodden in. He sniffed it. A faint aroma of Denim still lingered. It could be Doyle’s. It is Doyle’s.
A yellow Escort pulled up alongside him.
“If you want some time alone with that scarf you’re fondling I can circle round and come back,” Murphy offered through the open side window.
“It’s Doyle’s scarf,” Bodie replied, absently.
“The offer still stands.”
Bodie didn’t answer straightaway and when he looked up he saw that Murphy was watching with a knowing look on his face. “Get in the bloody car, Bodie,” was all he said.
Bodie went round to the passenger side and got in, slamming open the glove box and shoving the scarf roughly inside.
“We’ll find him, Bodie.”
“I should have been here.”
“You couldn’t help having car trouble. How did you get out, anyway?”
“Out? Of the car? There’s these things called doors, Murph. You pull on the handle and they open and you get out of the car that way.”
Murphy glanced at him. “You’re soaked through. Thought you’d been in the river.”
“No, I haven’t been in the river. Have you been at Cowley’s Scotch again? It’s pissing it down out there, that’s why I’m wet.”
Murphy made an exasperated noise. “Your car was found in the river. It’s an easy assumption to make.”
“Not in the river. At the river.”
Murphy was shaking his head. “I saw it, mate. Watched them dragging it out.”
Bodie cursed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! They would have had divers there, though? Did they find any bodies?”
Murphy hesitated and Bodie yelled, “Did they find any fucking bodies, Murph?” He thumped the dashboard out of frustration. Jenna knew how to handle the Capri. She’d been driving cars since she was fifteen years old. Hell, she’d been a getaway driver on a couple of occasions. There was no way she would have lost control.
The fear he’d felt when he’d found Doyle’s scarf and knew he was missing now doubled.
Murphy looked concerned. “They dragged it out with a tow truck from the local garage. I didn’t see any divers, but then Cowley sent me to get you once you’d called in. Who was driving it if it wasn’t you?”
“Jenna.”
“A bird?”
“My cousin.”
“Why...? No, don’t even bother answering that, mate. It’s between you and Cowley and the less I know the better. You don’t think she drove it in, do you?”
“One way to find out,” Bodie said, tight-lipped. I will drive your car into the river and let the little fishies play houses with it. She wouldn’t... “Take me there.”
“The car’s gone-”
“Murph, do me a favour. Just shut up and take me there.”
Bodie pressed his lips together, not trusting himself to speak any more. Murphy, good friend that he was, nodded. “Okay. But you’re explaining it to the Cow.”
o0o
The feeling came back to Doyle’s hands in a prickling rush, so that he winced and shook them, rubbed them hard against the rough denim of his jeans, wanting it over with fast. His feet weren’t so bad, but even so it was precious seconds before he could stand up, seconds in which their captors could burst through the door, knock him back down to his knees.
Jenna was already up, making her way along each wall and shelf in case there was anything they could use to get them out and away - or at least that was what Doyle assumed. She was enough like Bodie that she could just as well be looking for a weapon for when the men came back. Two of them, Jenna had said, and he knew that one of them was Lawrence Ashton, convicted thug, and not apparently in a forgiving mood. He thought they’d seen the back of him when they had him locked up for a good long stretch on solid evidence of that Irish arms bust - and that poor sod he’d kneecapped along the way. Four years wasn’t nearly long enough when the judge had said ten. They’d earned a scotch each from the old man after standing up in court for three days on the trot for it, one of their first results that had been.
Only some idiot had decided that blowing someone’s knees away, and helping others to maim dozens more, was only worth four years of Ashton’s own life.
Joining Jenna in her search, clenching his teeth against every step as his ankles protested, he tried to remember everything he’d ever known about Lawrie Ashton.
“Wire!” Jenna’s voice cut through his thoughts, soft and urgent and pleased. She was crouching in a corner, stretching her arm under the lowest shelf, and leaning slightly backwards rather than forwards for better reach, her other hand on the floor behind her for balance.
Definitely all woman, Doyle thought absently, watching her contortions. Not really like Bodie at all. “They train you in the circus, did they?” he asked, not surprised when she ignored him in favour of her goal, which was apparently tucked as far into the corner as it could be.
“There!” She righted herself and stood without apparent effort, brandishing a twist of thin wire that had clearly seen better days. Would it last long enough for him to pick the lock with it? Maybe… Jenna was starting to straighten it out, rust flaking to the ground, and he reached out for it.
“Right, let’s have a…”
“‘ang on, ‘ang on - do you know what you’re doing with this?” she asked, snatching it back from his hand. “I’ll have us out that door in five seconds if you gimme some space, you know.”
“They don’t teach that in the circus,” Doyle observed, holding up placating hands when she frowned at him. “If you’re sure you can do it…” Her frown turned into a glare, and he turned back to his own search, eyeing the garage door thoughtfully. Would it be better to try and get through there, or should they chance the house? It would make more noise, but it might give them a better head start, and in the absence of errant crowbars and hammers, a head start might be all they had on their side.
He turned his face upwards instead, in case there was anything hanging from the exposed roofing timbers, unconsciously bouncing on his feet to warm them up more quickly, flexing muscles ready for when they were needed. There was nothing up there that he could see.
“Got it!”
He spun around to find that Jenna had taken all decisions out of his hands, already bending to the lock at the door to the house, fingers on the handle ready to pull it open and let them out. Shit - he wasn’t ready, they weren’t ready…
“Hold on…” he began, and at the same time the door was pushed open with a sudden shove from the other side, surprising Jenna so that she fell to the floor with a cry, two men looming above her - neither of them, Doyle noted in the split second that their own confusion gave him, Ashton.
“What the hell…?” one of them began, the younger man who’d been in front, half turning his head away from Doyle to look at Jenna, and that was all Doyle needed. He’d taken a step towards them even as the door opened, put some power behind the next one to turn it into a leap without thinking, and kicked out, catching him on the jaw and knocking him backwards.
From the corner of his eye Doyle could see the second man duck past them, reaching out for Jenna and making a grab for her wrist, but then his own victim was rebounding from the wall and coming at him, and he reached out himself to take control, turning a vicious punch with one hand, using his other to pull the man to him, bringing his leg up in a hard, winding blow to the chest and stomach, then pushing him away again with his own punch so that he was out for the count.
Jenna - Bodie would never forgive him… He spun around, planting his feet firmly so that he could launch in whatever direction was safest, only to see Jenna not only back on her feet, but leaping onto the other man’s back and clamping her teeth firmly onto his neck. The man let out a scream of surprise and pain, and started staggering back towards the wall. Doyle yelled out, and Jenna released him, so that he stumbled with the freedom from her weight, one hand to his neck, and Doyle was able to aim a solid kick at him, pushing him back, and then following through with yet another blow to the head that twisted him around and down, to lie unmoving on the floor.
When he was sure the man wasn’t moving, had checked the other with a quick glance behind him, Doyle looked up again, to where Jenna was grimacing and wiping blood from her mouth. He was pretty sure it wasn’t hers. Something must have shown in his face, because her own expression turned from distaste to defiance, and she tilted her chin up.
“Wha’?” she asked belligerently. “You try getting the drop on someone twice your size without bendin’ the rules, then you can look at me like tha’!
Like Bodie, he thought irrelevantly, her accent thicker the less she was thinking about it. “Right now,” he said, “I don’t care if you gouged his eyes out - we’ve got to get out of here.” He moved over to the door that had been pushed closed again in the struggle, pressed his ear close to listen for sounds behind it.
“Wha’ for?” Jenna asked. “We’ve got both the bastards!”
Doyle looked up and caught her eye, shaking his head. “We might have got the blokes who snatched you - but these aren’t the blokes who snatched me - and at least one of them is a bigger bastard than either of your lot.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly. Now…” he held up a hand to forestall anything else she might say, leaning back to the door to listen again, and for a wonder she obeyed, though he could feel her stepping closer to him, could almost feel the same electricity from it that he felt from Bodie’s presence.
Nothing - they had to risk it.
He ventured a second risk, taking Jenna’s hand and pulling her further behind him so that she would be sheltered from anything that might be waiting behind the door for them, and then he turned the handle, slowly, as quietly as he could.
Still nothing, so he inched it open, peering through the gap to what seemed to be an empty hallway, dimly lit and bare of anything except two other doorways - one that was clearly a front door, with a semicircle of stained glass at the top, a modern latch, and a key hanging heavily from the older keyhole underneath it. The other door was halfway along the corridor, and there was a strip of light shining golden underneath it, and as they crept closer, the muffled sound of voices.
Jenna was following him closely, quietly and without protest, and he turned to catch her eye again, lifting a finger to his lips in unnecessary warning, nodding at the door. She nodded back, and he took a cautious step, wary of creaking floorboards under the thin carpet they trod along, of the chance that whoever was in there would choose now to come to the door, to go to the bog, to check up on their companions.
Another step, and they were past the door, another two and they were almost there…
There was no light beyond the stained glass, no glow of daylight, dawn, or even a nearby streetlight, which was odd, but it was something to deal with when they were out there, and Doyle let go of Jenna to reach up to the top lock, turning the latch and sliding the catch down so that it held. He paused, listening again, hearing only Jenna’s soft breath now, just hard and fast enough to betray that she was scared, and he wondered if she could hear his own as his heart pounded away in what felt like double-quick time. He took the key in one hand, ready to turn it if need be, twisted the doorknob with the other, and pulled.
The door opened towards him, letting in a shiver of cold December air, and he took a relieved breath, letting it fill his lungs. Behind him Jenna put a hand on his back, as if to push him through, and he opened the door wide enough to let her slide past, then pulled at the key to take it with him, to lock the door behind them.
It wouldn’t come, somehow stuck in the lock, and he cursed, but let it go. If they got far enough away before their absence was discovered they wouldn’t need the delay. Jenna was halfway down the path already, and he pulled the door quietly closed and began to follow her - promptly stumbling on a step that he hadn’t seen, his hand reaching out to save himself and smashing into a rubbish bin half-hidden and leaning behind some kind of bush in a pot, so that the lid slid off and clattered onto the paving stones.
“Come on, will you! Jenna was shouting, and grabbing his arm, and he scrambled to his feet even as he heard a door slam and footsteps pounding through the house behind them. Without a glance, because above all he needed to get Jenna away, had to get her to safety, he turned the scramble to a run, dragging Jenna along behind him, into the absolute black of the night.
...cont./
Click here for Part Two (and trailer).