blueberry yoghurt, trail mix, flavour of the day with malt and caramel
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Mrs Fitzpatrick
Rating: G/PG (very mild cursing)
Challenge: Blueberry Yoghurt #10: a fresh start, Trail Mix #4: outer space, FOTD: eke
Toppings/Extras: malt, caramel
Wordcount: 837
Summary: Robyn Walshe and Victor Blackledge: private investigators.
Notes: Trick-or-treat prompt from the lovely luna_moonsilver: “Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again.” I might make a spin-off about these two ‘cause I love them. Four years post-Timeless. Eke, transitive verb, 1-to gain or supplement with great effort or difficulty.
Across the pale, silvery landscape of Valetta City, night was falling. At least, that was what it was called. Being on the moon, all that it truly meant was a slow dimming of the hundreds of halogen floodlights that permanently blazed down on the city during their false daytime. The large dome that preserved the atmosphere seemed to glow dully somewhere high above them, giving the thousands of people within a view of the stars and the nearer satellites. For this fortnight, their side of the moon was the dark side.
Somewhere in the suburbs of Valetta City, on a pretty little curved road called Leigham Lane, there was a line of tall hedgerows, rooted into trenches dug into the moon’s silvery rock and filled with fertile Earth soil. They grew quite well, although fertiliser had to be pumped through the soil-trench network every day along with water, and all of the worms they kept importing to churn up the soil kept dying.
Settled somewhere underneath one of these hedges were two figures, although you couldn’t have seen them unless you happened to trip over their long legs.
Robyn Walshe dropped a pair of slim binoculars from her eyes.
“This is such bollocks!” she scowled. There was frustration clear in her hazel-brown eyes from the way they flashed in the fading light-huffing, she sat up somewhat, dusting leaves from her hair.
Beside her, the dark-haired Victor Blackledge seemed to be in a world of his own, humming faintly as he stripped leaves of everything but their skeletal veins.
“Keep your mind on the mission, Vic,” Robyn said, resisting the urge to sigh.
Victor glanced towards her and arched an eyebrow somewhat.
“No, this job is not beneath you... well...” Robyn bit her lip a moment, looping a strand of dark blonde hair behind one ear. She had very thick, long hair that she always kept out her face by tying it in a golden cord down her back. It had been a slow, insipid day, and somehow that seemed to make it more tiring than a busy, exciting one. “It’s beneath both of us. But at least pretend to help.”
After a moment, Victor put down the leaf he had been painstakingly tweaking apart and looked at her expectantly. Robyn scratched beneath her ear idly.
“Just keep an eye on her, will you? I’ll bring us back some coffee.”
She caught Victor’s indignant exhalation through his nose as she stood, but chose to ignore it, stuffing her hands into her pockets and walking out into the grey road. Everything was pale on the moon, and now the halogen lights were fading out and only small white streetlights dotted the wide, arcing road. Large, impressive houses sneered down at her from every side-the flat she lived in wasn’t a patch on Leigham Lane.
Bloody Fitzpatrick, she thought stormily. Dr Drew Fitzpatrick had hired them to follow his obscenely boring wife around to make sure that she wasn’t having an affair. Robyn was just about certain that the mousey creature Fitzpatrick was married to wasn’t, but if they were going to get paid they had to put the hours in-and how, exactly, did they prove she wasn’t an adulterer?
Being a private investigator came with a large range of advantages and disadvantages, but personally, Robyn felt that hiring a private investigator to follow your own wife around was nothing short of pathetic-yet it was one of the most common type of case that she and Victor received.
It was a staple of private eyes to be short on cash; true to stereotype, she and Victor were clinging by the skin of their teeth. Working for Newson they had never had to worry about anything: under the wing of his immense wealth, they had been provided for in abundance-they had lived in Hamlet Tower, eaten the food there, trained there, worked there. Suddenly it was like being thrust into blinding daylight.
She liked her independence-loved it. Lived for it. She told herself this countless amounts of times. Sometimes, though, it was hard to remember it. Especially when she was wondering if she had enough on her three separate cards for two cups of instant coffee.
“What’s the news?” she asked, half-sarcastic, as she returned. Victor flicked the palm-cam towards her, and she slid it open to stare at the footage. After a moment, she wrinkled her nose and glanced up towards the curtains of the large house. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”
Pulling a face, Victor stood up and stretched shudderingly.
“There’s no need to feel like a letch, Vic,” Robyn said idly, patting him on the shoulder as they made their way back towards their car. “Fitzpatrick was the one that wanted us to. And hey... this means we can probably get another round of shopping in. What do you say? Chicken or pork?”
There was a long pause.
“For the last time, Vic... we can’t afford lamb. Not yet.”