dedicated with love to Nicole Craig who believed.

Part 1: "Stand by me, Death"

The doorbell pealed; with a grunt of annoyance, Cowley pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the stab of pain through his knee, and went to answer it. Before he could get there, it rang again, as if the caller was furious with impatience. Himself annoyed, Cowley yanked the door open. "What is it . . . Bodie?"

"I wanted to see you, sir."

"Evidently," Cowley said dryly. Bodie had washed and changed since this afternoon; instead of the grimy black leather gear he'd gone to fight the Hell's Angels in, he was clean and trim in cords and a black jersey. It had been several hours ago that he'd sent both Doyle and Bodie home for the day. "Well, come in." He stood aside and locked the door after the other man. Without being invited, Bodie had gone through to Cowley's sitting room and sat down on the chair opposite the one Cowley had been sitting in, the glass of Scotch set on the floor beside it.

Cowley remained standing, hoping to keep the interview of short duration. "Well, what is it, Bodie?"

"I need to know," Bodie said flatly, "would you have shot me?"

The memory of the moment when he had held the gun to Bodie's dark head was vivid with Cowley. No. But if it ever happens again, a cooler voice interjected, if you need to make him believe you'd kill him to stop him doing some damned foolish thing and wrecking his life - what then? Cowley's face was as impassive as the darker man's. "What do you think?"

"That's not an answer," Bodie grated. His voice was heavy and deep with anger.

Cowley's knee was stabbed again with white pain. Before it could give way, he sat down, picking up his glass and drinking from it. He knew his voice was quite level. "It's all the answer you'll get, Bodie."

All of Cowley's operatives, some more effectively than others, could exude menace. Cowley had seen people under interrogation give in out of pure terror of what Bodie - or any of his crack operatives - might do. But Bodie more than any of the rest; Doyle, and the others, would deliberately menace, but Bodie reeked danger without even trying.

As he was doing now. He had been sitting still, his eyes apparently on the floor, not looking at Cowley. And then, almost without apparent transition, he was on his feet, looming over the older man, and one hand gripping his forearm. "I need to know," he said dangerously.

Cowley set his face to neutral and his eyes to outstare Bodie's. Blue eyes. Vividly, strikingly blue, under crooked dark brows. And his knee was sending shafts of agony up through him, in this state it objected to being walked on, let alone to a run through the woods -

Without taking his eyes from Bodie's, Cowley's forearm jerked from Bodie's hand and, with both hands, he began to try and settle his leg into a more bearable position. Abruptly, Bodie knelt down and, brushing Cowley's hands away, began to rub at the cramping muscles just above the knee.

"How long has this been going on?" he demanded.

Cowley leant his head back. "It comes and goes." Bodie's hands felt good.

"How long has this particular bout been going on?" Bodie expanded, exasperated.

"Three days," Cowley admitted. The pain was lessening, and now that it was no longer over-mastering, a familiar and unwelcome consciousness was creeping through him. Bodie was attractive. Very attractive. Very dangerous. Attractive because dangerous, and, for Cowley, dangerous because attractive.

Cowley closed his eyes. Bodie's hands were still working on his leg. He heard Bodie mutter "You're a brave old sod," and his mouth twitched.

"It's inaccurate," he said, almost under his breath. "I'm not brave."

Opening his eyes, he sat up straighter. "That's enough." There were still faint twinges from his leg, but as soon as Bodie had gone he could lie down and the knee would stop complaining. "It's all right, Bodie. Thanks."

He had hoped that Bodie would withdraw to his seat, but the other man sat back on his heels and reached for Cowley's glass, passing it up to him. He was still far too close for Cowley's peace of mind, and looking up at Cowley with an eyebrow-tilted, speculative look in his eyes. "You said that before," he said lightly, "and I didn't believe you then."

"My leg is fine," Cowley said tightly, deliberately misunderstanding.

"That you're not brave."

Cowley shrugged. "I don't like risks."

"You took a risk on me. After all, I'm queer." Bodie grinned and his accent changed, deliberately plummy. "I always thought men like that shot themselves." Reverting to his normal voice, he added "But you were going to do it for me." A pause. "Were you?"

Ignoring the last part, Cowley shrugged. "You'd been in the paras and the SAS and you weren't dishonourably discharged from either, so it wasn't much of a risk that you'd not be discreet." He'd also given orders that Bodie was to tell him who he slept with, to avoid security risks. Bodie had been surprisingly continent, in three years. "Thanks for your help. I'll see you and Doyle in my office, eight am tomorrow." He stood up briskly to show Bodie out, took one step and nearly fell.

Bodie was holding him up, one arm round his waist, the other, on Cowley's bad side, taking his weight. Resting against Bodie's hip. "Let go of me, Bodie."

"In a minute, sir." He was guiding Cowley over to the couch, and let him gently down, carefully lifting his legs up. Lying flat, Cowley let out an involuntary breath of relief.

"Where's the painkillers?" Bodie asked briskly.

"I don't use them."

The other man glanced back at the bottle, half-full. "Just the Scotch?"

Cowley ignored that. Bodie was still half-sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning over him, one arm propped against the back. Cowley was about to tell him to go, when, with a disarming grin, Bodie asked "You hungry? `Cos I'm starving."

Tell him to go away. But he wasn't going to feel like getting up for a couple of hours yet. What the hell - "You'll find something in the freezer, no doubt."

They had supper, talking shop. Both of them avoided talking about the events of the past week; Cowley would get Doctor Ross's final report tomorrow, and then would be time enough to bring it up. The steak and peas were good; Cowley complimented him. Bodie grinned. "Straight from freezer to stove to stomach, and I'm a good cook."

When Cowley next glanced at the clock, he saw it was ten past midnight. This time, when he sat up, his knee gave out no more than a twinge, and he pushed himself to his feet without difficulty. Standing up, the knee started complaining more viciously, but a night's rest should put it right. "My office, eight am, sharp," he reminded Bodie, who nodded, following him out the door.

"Right, sir." Standing in the hall, under the light that gleamed on his dark hair, he was ruthlessly attractive. Cowley took hold of the bannister behind him, surreptitiously. His knee had started complaining in triplicate.

"Good night, Bodie," he said firmly.

Bodie just stood there, looking at him. "Think I'd better help you up the stairs, sir," He moved forward inexorably and, as before, took Cowley's arm firmly in his own, holding his weight against him.

"You should see a doctor about that leg," he commented on the way up.

"I have been to see," Cowley took a breath, "a dozen doctors about my leg. All of them recommended cutting my knee up to get the bullet out. None of them could guarantee I'd still have my leg afterwards. Then they prescribe painkillers."

"Which you don't take." They'd reached the top of the stairs and Bodie headed for the open door, guiding Cowley over to the neatly-made bed, switching the centre light on with his shoulder on the way. He went to the windows and drew the curtains, returning to the bed to swing Cowley's legs up and push him gently back against the headboard. Then, still casual, he sat down on the end of the bed and began to pull Cowley's shoes off, first right, then left, putting them down on the floor.

"I don't need your help getting undressed, Bodie," Cowley snapped.

Bodie finished with the second shoe and grinned. He moved up the bed, reached out for Cowley's tie. "All part of the service, sir."

He had pulled away the tie and unbuttoned the top button on Cowley's shirt before the other man snapped "Bodie!" and took hold of the wrists, holding his hands firmly away from the second button down.

"You may not need it," Bodie said deliberately "but unless I've been reading you all wrong, I think you want it."

Cowley took a breath. "What I might want is completely irrelevant, Bodie. Get out."

The other man was grinning that small smug smile that had made a good many people itch to slap it off his face. Cowley was no exception. However, both his hands were occupied. Bodie leant forward and kissed him. Still smiling, he pulled his hands free of Cowley's grip, stood up. He switched the bedside light on, went to the door and switched off the centre light. His eyes on Cowley, watching Cowley watch him.

Nothing so unsubtle as a strip-tease. Just Bodie, taking his clothes off, in the middle of the room where Cowley had slept alone for years. Just Bodie. Nothing subtle about him.

Naked and scarred he came back to the bed and began to undress the other man; and this time Cowley said nothing. Nothing until they were both naked, under the covers, and Bodie was lying over him, kissing the side of his neck. "How do you want it?" Bodie breathed, his voice thickened; not faking it, no. Not with his erection hard against Cowley's thigh.

Cowley remembered, afterwards, the dark hair crisp as feathers against his fingers; remembered tracing the line of one scar that curled around Bodie's ribs like a whiplash; remembered the sleepy, still-confident, smile on Bodie's face as he hooked an arm around the other man's waist and fell into a satisfied sleep. These things he could bear to remember, though they seared him; for the rest, it would have been better if he could have forgotten what must never happen again.

When he woke, the room was half-lit with the morning sun through the curtains, and Bodie's arm was a warm weight across his waist, and Bodie's hair was ruffled against his neck. He knew that the last night had been probably the worst mistake of his life.

The alarm clock started screeching; his hand went out to switch it off instinctively. Bodie rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows with an enormous yawn, blinking. When he opened his eyes again, he was grinning, even though, visibly, he was still not entirely awake.

Before Bodie could either say or do anything more, Cowley got out of bed. He was halfway through to the bathroom before he realised that his leg was complaining no more than usual. That was one bonus out of this worst mistake.

He came back, showered and more awake; Bodie brushed past him on his way to the bathroom, his face set in a sombre look. Cowley trusted that this meant Bodie had thought things through and come to the logical conclusion. He cleared up his own clothing from where Bodie had dropped it last night; his housekeeper would be in at nine and would be - to say the least - startled to find that her normally obsessively neat employer had thrown his clothes all over his bedroom.

Downstairs in the kitchen he started the percolator, and sat down at the table, resting his elbows on it and rubbing his face with his hands. Probably the worst mistake of his life. He looked up, catching some whisper of sound, and Bodie was standing in the doorway.

Without a word, the other man pulled down two mugs from the shelf above the sink, opened the fridge and took out a bottle of milk, set the lot on the table in front of Cowley, and went to lean above the percolator. When, a minute later, it signalled ready, he filled both cups and sat down, adding milk to his own mug.

Cowley sweetened his coffee and drank the first scalding mouthful. He had never been in a fit state in the early morning until at least his second cup of coffee. Finishing his first mugful, and pouring a second, he was arrested for an instant by a purely practical consideration. "Where did you park your car last night, Bodie?"

"Round the corner. Not in your parking place." Bodie took the jug from his hand and poured himself another cup. His face bore the same eyebrow-tilted, speculative look as it had yesterday evening.

Catalysed by that look, Cowley said sharply "This doesn't make any difference, 3.7. And never again."

Finishing his coffee, Bodie said nothing. He pushed his chair back, glanced at his watch. "Ten to seven. I'd better be going, sir. See you later."

In the CI5 car park, Doyle had just drawn up when he saw Bodie's car pull in, and waited for him. His partner didn't seem to have noticed; he climbed out of his car, slammed the door, and was heading towards the entrance when Doyle yelled "Bodie!"

At that, the other man did pause and glance round. Doyle caught up with him. "You going blind or something?" he inquired amiably.

"Morning, Ray." Bodie pushed the door open and went in, Doyle following.

"Where were you last night? I rang you up about half-eight to ask if you wanted to come out for a drink, and you weren't in."

"Use your head, sunshine," Bodie advised. "I'd already gone out for a drink."

"Drinking alone's bad for you, y'know," Doyle offered, unoffended.

"Yeah," Bodie turned and grinned at him, "if I'd known you were going out alone I'd have been worried."

Doyle swung a mock-punch at him; they'd just reached Cowley's secretary's office, and when Bodie dodged he barely missed a stack of paperwork in Kirsty's In tray. "Careful," she warned, but she was smiling.

"Sorry, darling," Doyle lounged on her desk. "Cowley's expecting us, eight sharp."

"I'll tell him you're here."

Bodie was on edge, Doyle knew, and couldn't blame him; this morning, they were due to hear about the final reports on the annual testing, and though he'd done well enough in the end, his early scores had been bad enough for a greenie. So when Kirsty put the phone down and told them to go through now, Doyle made no objection to entering first.

In his office, eight o'clock, Cowley was reading through the final reports on Doyle and Bodie. Doyle's was unqualifiedly positive, as Cowley had known it would be; he put it to one side after skimming through it. Bodie's was more complicated.

All the other reports but the psychological one were moderately positive; after a few days of unusual incompetence, Bodie had suddenly returned to his usual killer level and remained there. Only Doctor Ross had qualified her recommendation; one more day's reaction tests to ensure that Bodie hadn't faked the results as she suspected he had last time; and she also wanted to interview him over the Williams business.

His phone buzzed. "4.5 and 3.7 here, sir."

"All right, send them in."

Doyle first, Bodie just behind him. In a quick glance, Cowley could read no change in Bodie's expression; it might have been any morning.

"Morning, sir," Doyle said cheerfully.

"Good morning, 4.5, 3.7. 4.5, your report is completely positive; you're back on duty as of today. You're scheduled for hand gun tutoring with the new men over at the centre, 9.30 sharp."

Doyle nodded, glancing at Bodie, who shifted almost imperceptibly.

"3.7," Cowley went on, "everyone except Doctor Ross appears to be satisfied with you. You'll be spending today with further reaction tests at the centre. She also wants to ask you some questions about the Keith Williams case. She's expecting you in an hour."

Bodie nodded. No arguments; evidently Doyle had expected something as well, from the odd look he threw his partner.

"Well?" Cowley asked briskly. "What are you waiting for?"

Bodie cleared his throat. "Permission to speak to you in private, sir."

Cowley looked at him sharply. But if he was keeping to what he had told Bodie, no difference, he had no reason to refuse. He hoped he wouldn't have reason to kick Bodie out in five minutes. "All right, 3.7. 4.5, you can go."

The door closed; Bodie said without preamble "Reporting as in standing orders, sir; I slept with a man last night."

Cowley's breath caught in his throat for a moment. Bodie continued over the silence "I don't need to give you his name; I don't believe there's any security risk. Not sure whether it's a one-night stand, or more than that, yet, sir; I'm leaving that up to him to decide." He looked down at Cowley without smiling, but that speculative look in his blue eyes.

"All right, 3.7, you can go," Cowley grated, unable to rebuke Bodie for insolence.

CI5 was chronically under-staffed; the morning after Bodie had been passed fit for duty, they were pushed off on a drugs ring case that had been waiting twenty-four hours for them. Cowley snapped out the information and ordered them out the door fastest; on the way to Records to pick up the photographs, Doyle whistled.

"The Cow's not getting any sweeter-tempered, is he?"

"Leg's probably killing him. Don't you have any of those contacts of yours in Lambeth?"

"Never my district, sunshine." Doyle started to whistle again. They were back on the job.

Four days later, the main distributor having been cleaned up - though her source was still unknown - they were reporting back. Doyle did most of the talking; Bodie had clammed up.

Cowley had apparently not sweetened in four days. Maybe Bodie was right, Doyle thought with faint uneasiness, and the Cow's leg was giving him hell. He looked sideways at Bodie, expecting some kind of backup - his partner was usually damn good at giving ever-so-respectfully as good as he got - but the other man was doing the stony-faced look, and answering only direct questions.

"We went through the house with a fine-tooth comb," Bodie was saying, unusually quietly, in response to a growled jab from Cowley about how they searched the place?

"Yeah," Doyle chimed in; "did the CI5 Number all over the wallpaper, the carpet, the lino, the floor-boards, and the loo. We got the heroin, sir."

"One kilo," Cowley snarled. "Raiker's supply for a month. You didn't get her import agent, and that's what counts."

And if they'd got the import agent, then Cowley would have been growling that the overseas contact was still on the loose . . . that was the sort of thing Bodie normally said, but with the Cow's temper (or his leg?) in this state, maybe he was right to keep his smart mouth shut. Funny, it had never stopped him before.

"We did find something," Doyle offered. "Not much; just the name on her telephone pad. Chrestomanci. All tied up with a lot of doodles, like she'd been sitting by the phone with a pen in her hand."

"And?"

"Well, we looked," Doyle glanced sideways at his impassive partner, "Bodie looked it up in her address book and it's the name of a toy shop in Reading."

"Well?"

"She's thirty-seven," Doyle said, "not married, no relatives, so far as we know no close friends with children - so why does she have a toy shop's address in her phone book?"

"Mphm." Cowley frowned. "All right, it's worth following up. Get out there."

"What, now?" It was past five, and they'd had four days on stake-out. "Don't we even get a night's sleep, sir?"

Cowley glanced at his watch. "Aye. I suppose so. First thing tomorrow morning, 4.5, 3.7. Now get out of here."

"Old bugger," Doyle muttered viciously on the way down the stairs. "And the bloody toy shop probably belongs to her second cousin."

Bodie didn't answer; Doyle stopped short and glared at him. "Bodie!"

"What?" Four days on stake-out; no wonder he sounded tired.

"What's up? You didn't say one more goddamn word in there than you had to - what's eating you?" Since Bodie was still heading down to the exit, Doyle followed.

"I'm bloody tired, that's all."

"You're tired? Listen, I was on stake-out too, y'know - "

Bodie turned his nastiest dark-blue glare on his partner. "You were? Thought that was a gollywog in the passenger seat."

Doyle grinned and thumped him. "And a kapok-stuffed gorilla in the driver's seat."

Going home. He hadn't slept here since the night before he'd taken on those bikers. Since the night before he'd slept with Cowley. Forget it; that was over. Cowley was acting like he'd forgotten 3.7 had any other name.

There was a pizza left in the freezer and a can of baked beans in the cupboard and three slices of stale bread in the bread-box. Bodie cursed. He always forgot to go shopping until after he'd run out of food; and he didn't feel like going out again until after he'd had a night's sleep in a bed instead of a car.

The bread he threw out, the pizza went under the grill while he was finding a clean pan to heat the beans in. He poured the sludgy beans over the pizza and took the plate through to the living room to sit in front of the tv while he ate.

There was a new series on the BBC which probably would have been better if he hadn't been falling asleep in the middle of trying to work out whether he fancied the dark one or the curly-haired one more. Halfway through the third badly-staged fight Bodie gave up trying to figure out what the hell was going on, switched the tv off, and went to bed.

He was in a forest that turned around him. Nothing was secure except the people he was fighting; they were vivid and solid and certain and he struck at them and they fell and became as fuzzy as the forest floor, and more came at him. Until there were no more left to come at him except the bastard who'd killed his friend and the forest was spinning around him and nothing was secure except the stick in his hand.

He flung the stick away and went for Billy. The younger man didn't stand a chance, and that made Bodie feel good. Keith hadn't stood a chance. Let the punk know what it felt like.

"Bodie?" Certainty; compact, explosive certainty; Cowley. Holding a gun to his head. Something was crumbling. "So help me, Bodie, if you finish that neck-lock I'll shoot you dead."

Crumbling. Standing in the open, in the sun, and one of the two securities of this life was crumbling at a touch. "Sir? Mind if I ask you a question?"

"What?"

"If I had killed him, would you have pulled the trigger?"

A pause. "What do you think?" And Cowley turned and walked away.

Bodie stood there, watching him. He was aware of Doyle standing beside him, and asked "What d'you reckon?"

"I reckon he might have."

No certainty. If he wanted security, he had to make it himself. Same as always. Bodie watched Cowley walk away.

As usual, he was out of bed and putting the coffee on (one thing he took care not to run out of was coffee - he was in no fit state in the morning until after his second cup) before he was fully awake. And still aware that he was missing something, but unable to work out what.

Cowley. Bodie shook his head. Nah. He'd got what he wanted. Cowley wouldn't kill him, not now. But he'd liked the compact wiry strength of the older man. He'd liked the way Cowley touched him. He'd liked waking up next to someone who knew who he was.

Better to forget it. Appropriately, the doorbell rang. Bodie picked up the intercom.

"Doyle."

"Door's open."

"Morning," Doyle beamed, bursting in like happiness at a funeral. He grabbed a fairly clean cup and poured himself some coffee.

Bodie glared. "Make yourself at home."

"Thanks," Doyle agreed. "How's the stuffed gorilla this morning?"

"How's the gollywog?" Bodie finished his coffee and picked up Doyle's mug as well, dumping them both in the sink.

"I hadn't finished!"

"We're supposed to be driving out to Reading this morning, aren't we?"

"Yeah. Your car or mine?"

"Yours." Bodie didn't feel like driving.

In the car, Bodie was silent. He never was much of a talker any early morning start, but his normally mobile face was sombre to grimness. "What's up?"

Bodie glanced sideways at him. "Thinking."

"Painful, is it?"

"About kapok," Bodie elaborated. "Stuffed gorillas."

"What?"

"Kapok," Bodie told him impatiently. "That toy shop. Bet you a fiver it stocks nice cuddly stuffed toys imported from Taiwan."

"And you reckon," Doyle started to grin, "they're stuffed with something else than kapok?"

"Would explain how it gets past Customs, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah." Doyle was shaking his head and chuckling. "God, can you imagine it? A stack of purple hippos stuffed up with heroin."

"Yeah. Bodie was grinning now; he seemed to have shaken off the moodiness. All of a sudden the morning looked better.

"What the hell is kapok, anyway?"

"Cotton."

"You learn something new every day . . . "

Cowley stood in the middle of the remains of what had been a toy shop, looking round rather grimly at the wreck. Doyle came out of the back room, holding a teddy bear in one hand. Seeing Cowley, he grinned, somewhat sheepishly.

"Afternoon, sir. Sorry about the mess."

"Was it necessary?"

Doyle shrugged. "They fired first. And it wasn't toy guns they were using."

"So I see. Where's 3.7?"

"Hunting up some more of these." Doyle held the bear out so that Cowley could see. The seam up the back had been slit open and inside was a neat hollow in the stuffing. "We reckon they must have been sewn up like this in the factory."

"Aye. So we've a line on the overseas supplier as well as getting the import agent. Nice work, 4.5."

"Bodie's idea," Doyle said generously.

Cowley nodded shortly. "Nice work," he repeated, and went back outside to clear up loose ends with the local police, who were neither appreciative of gun battles in their district nor of CI5 sniffing out the headquarters of a drugs ring from under their very noses.

He'd noted, without noticing, that the car he'd parked beside was Doyle's, not Bodie's. When matters had been settled to Cowley's satisfaction (if not that of the local police), there was still a boxful of eviscerated soft toys to be dealt with. Bodie and Doyle were standing over the colourful stack, suppressing hilarity as they caught his eye.

"Mphm," Cowley said, indicating the box with a shove of his toe. "You'd better take that round to the Drug Squad, 4.5. Just in case anyone has any ideas about copycat smuggling."

"Copybear . . ." Bodie muttered.

Cowley glared. "I'll see you both in my office Monday morning 8 am," he snapped, "3.7, want a lift?"

No hesitation, and no double-take. "Yeah. See you," Bodie added to Doyle.

Once the car was moving, Cowley said "Nice work." He glanced sideways at Bodie's face, outlined against the window, the man casually relaxed in the seat. Bodie didn't turn his head, but grinned. "Yeah."

Cowley fell silent again. Bodie and Doyle were a damn good unit. It would be a pity to lose Bodie. Manoeuvring his way out of Reading and on to the motorway, he mentioned the operation Murphy was working on, deep undercover, that had provided the information to send Bodie and Doyle after Raiker.

Bodie and he talked shop companionably for the rest of the journey. Cowley couldn't tell what might be going through the back of the other man's mind, behind that impassive face, but Bodie had evidently taken Cowley's warning of No difference seriously. He hadn't been insolent, nor reminding. It seemed as if he meant what he'd said, I'm leaving that up to you to decide.

It's dangerous, Cowley thought, navigating a roundabout, only half-listening to an anecdote of Doyle's sharp-shooting, to get involved with someone who knows who I am.

". . . so Doyle yells and I drop and next thing I know the bastard behind me, didn't even realise he was there, is down with three bullets through him. Doyle said after that if I hadn't dropped when I did it would have been through my head." Bodie's lips curled in a sudden grin. "Doyle shoots like he's aiming for a target at the bloody Olympics."

"Aye," Cowley nodded, "and you just shoot to kill."

Bodie's grin broadened, unoffended. "Yeah."

Dangerous, attractive, dangerous; but though a killer, not a blackmailer. At that rate he might be less of a risk than prostitutes . . . Cowley veered off that in sheer embarrassment. That was something he didn't like to think about before or after, and as little as possible during. They were coming into London, now, the houses sprouting up along the side of the road. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving," Bodie said easily.

"Mphm." As he pulled up at traffic lights, Cowley looked Bodie up and down. Faded cords and scruffy jacket. "Indian or Chinese?"

For the first time, Bodie turned to look the other man full on. He was smiling, blue eyes catching the smile. "Either," he said, with surpassing cheerfulness. He leant back against the seat again, still smiling. "I'll eat anything."

The restaurant was not crowded at this time in the evening, and the food was excellent, and the company was better. Cowley was aware that they were both setting out to be charming, and that Bodie, at least, was succeeding. The blue-eyed crooked-brows speculative look had returned, and Cowley was still not sure what he was going to do about it. He shared the last of the wine scrupulously between their glasses, and Bodie picked his up, the big hands holding the fragile glass, and smiled. "Your place or mine?" he asked quietly.

Making a final decision in a split second was one thing Cowley was good at. "Mine," he said just as quietly, picking up his own glass and finishing the wine.

Cowley paid the bill and followed Bodie to the door. Outside the sky was still light, though the sun was behind the buildings. Bodie was whistling, off-key and happy, as he walked to Cowley's car.

In the car, it re-occurred to the older man that he had never done anything like this before, that he would feel far more secure if he took Bodie to one of the anonymous hotel rooms he'd used before. He could just see Bodie standing for that. Cowley fell silent, and the other man, after a sideways glance at the dour face, didn't attempt to break the silence.

Once inside the house, Cowley went to the sitting room windows and drew the curtains. Bodie did not switch on the light until they were closed without a crack. Without being asked, he shrugged his jacket off and took Cowley's, hanging them both up in the hall. Alone for half a minute, Cowley let his shoulders sag. Mistake? God, he wanted Bodie. Dangerous, to let himself have anything he wanted that much.

Arms closed around him from behind and pulled him back against Bodie. Cowley jerked away and spun round. "For God's sake, man, get your hands off me!"

Bodie's eyebrows drew down. "Sorry," he said unapologetically, and stood there looking at the other man until Cowley turned away and went automatically to the tv. He always watched the ten o'clock news, when possible.

Behind him he heard a short sigh, and Bodie sitting down on the couch. Cowley sat in his usual armchair, but about halfway through the news Bodie stood up and moved across the room to sit on the floor by him. On his good side, so that when the dark head shifted to lean back against his knee, it was not even uncomfortable. Merely disconcerting. He had no idea what the latter half of the news had been.

As the credits started rolling, Bodie made a long arm and switched the set off. "I'd just like to know," he said into the silence, "whether you'll remember my name's Bodie in the morning, and not 3.7."

Cowley made a small dry sound of amusement. "I'll remember." He got to his feet; Bodie scrambled up with the ease of someone with two sound legs. "You remember that it still doesn't make any difference." He turned away and made for the door, and the stairs, and the bed, knowing Bodie was right behind him.

Waking to the ringing of the alarm, and Cowley shifting under Bodie's arm to switch it off. And then a moment when the other man lay still, as if, as Bodie hoped half-asleep, he also was appreciating the sleepy closeness. The covers were shoved back and Cowley was gone, and Bodie could hear the shower being switched on in the bathroom. Bodie propped himself up on his elbows and glanced at the clock. Quarter past six. For someone who was no more of a morning person than Bodie was, Cowley kept unnatural habits.

After Bodie had showered, he dressed in the clothes of the night before and went downstairs to the kitchen, from which the smell of coffee was percolating. Cowley had taken two mugs down from the shelf and milk from the fridge for Bodie's coffee; an improvement on the first time, when Bodie hadn't been sure that he wasn't going to be kicked out without benefit of caffeine.

This time, Cowley even poured him a cup, and sat down opposite him again without a word. Bodie drank the coffee and brooded. Was it going to happen again?

Going home with Cowley was better than going home alone. He lifted his head and looked across the table at the other man. "Is there going to be a next time?" Bodie asked politely.

Cowley's glare was freezing, but Bodie only looked back. Cowley would want to make all the moves, at least outside the bedroom, and that was fair enough; but Bodie was not going to hang waiting for the next move when he had no surety that there would even be a next move.

"You would have to be exceptionally careful," Cowley said at last, in his precise Scottish accent. He might have been talking about some undercover operation, Bodie noted with drawn eyebrows, but grinned.

"Me? I'm always careful," he said expansively.

"I mean it, Bodie," Cowley snapped. "If one living soul gets to know about this, it's over, and you'll be looking for a new job."

Bodie rubbed along the side of his jaw with one knuckle, his eyes were blue, face set. "Understood, sir," he said quietly.

The other man's expression softened for an instant, and he smiled. "Aye. You do." Then, brisk as if the moment had never been, he asked "What are you planning to do with the rest of today?"

Bodie shrugged, pouring Cowley and then himself a second cup. Yeah, Cowley had given them, the weekend off, hadn't he? With everything else, Bodie had almost forgotten. "Playing squash with Doyle this afternoon, probably." Adding more milk, Bodie looked speculatively across at Cowley. Well, it was worth asking; "Doing anything this evening?"

Cowley frowned. "I'll have work to do," he said repressively.

So, he would want to make all the moves. Well, it had been worth asking. "OK, when?"

"I'll let you know."

Bodie nodded, finished his coffee, stood up. "I'd better be going. I'll catch a taxi on the main road."

Cowley went with him to the front door. There was a moment, when Bodie had pulled his jacket on and was standing in the doorway, his shadow blocking the sunlight, when he would have wanted to put an arm round the other man, kiss him lightly goodbye, as he would have done with any other man. He smiled, instead. "Bye. See you Monday."

And turned and walked down the driveway, feeling Cowley's eyes on him until he heard the door close. It was a wonderful morning - for Bodie, it could have been raining and it would still have been a wonderful morning. He felt good all over, keenly aware through his whole skin of the morning breeze and the summer's sky and the tactile memory of ho

He reached the main road in a couple of minutes, but kept walking, not wanting to stop moving. But within ten minutes a taxi passed, and he directed it back to his own flat.

If felt cold and empty. The sink was stacked with unwashed dishes dating from over a week ago. There was nothing to eat in the flat, and it would be an hour at least before the local supermarket would open. Grimly, Bodie bowed to necessity, and did the washing-up.

It was early Saturday afternoon when Bodie turned up. Doyle let him in and wandered back to his bedroom to pull on his jeans.

"Out on the tiles last night?" Doyle came back, a sweat-shirt half over his head, adding "Rang up and you weren't in."

"Yeah," Bodie agreed absently.

"Anyone I know?"

Bodie shook his head, grinning. "No one you'd be interested in, sunshine."

He'd told Doyle years ago, when they were first permanently partnered, that he was bisexual. It seemed to mean no more to Bodie than the occasional walk on the wild side. "Ah," Doyle said sapiently, nodding. "Squash this afternoon?" Bodie's extracurricular sex life didn't bother him, but he never wanted to talk about it. At least, not once he'd confirmed that he wasn't Bodie's type.

"Going to beat you into the ground," Bodie said cheerfully.

"Everyone should have one unfulfilled ambition."

On the way over to the sports centre (Bodie's car, today, so he was driving) Doyle said, awkward despite having been thinking about it for quite a while "Y'know, something's been eating you for the past few days."

"So?" Bodie grunted.

"Anything to do with the Cow holding a gun on you?"

For an instant, Bodie glared at him. Then, turning his attention back to the road, he muttered "Yeah."

Another pause. "I don't think he would've killed you, Bodie."

Bodie slammed through traffic lights turning amber and took a corner almost too fast. Doyle shut up. They were almost at the sports centre before Bodie said, out of the blue, "No, he wouldn't."

And that was all, then or later. Bodie, Doyle concluded, must have decided not to hold a grudge.

---

Part 2: "if the wound grows sharp"

"You're lucky you've got a good thick skull," the man in the white coat was telling him cheerfully. Bodie tried to nod and realised this was not a sensible idea. Next time he opened his eyes he was lying in a white empty room that smelled of hospital, and the afternoon light coming in through the windows. He could see yellowing leaves outside, and hear the faint roar of traffic.

A nurse came in briskly and smiled at him. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Bodie said automatically. "Headache."

"Yes. Do you remember what happened?"

"Must have been hit over the head," Bodie concluded. "Where's Doyle?"

"If you wouldn't mind answering a few questions," the nurse didn't answer him.

Probably didn't know. Save that till someone else came by.

"What's your full name?"

"William Andrew Philip Bodie."

"What's the date?"

"Nineteenth September. Tuesday."

"And where are you?"

"Hospital. Probably East London." That would have been the nearest to where he had been knocked out, and that was CI5 standard procedure.

"Right. Well, you seem to be doing well."

"What's the time?"

"Nearly four o'clock." The nurse smiled again and turned to go.

"Wait a minute. Was anyone brought in with me? Raymond Doyle, curly-haired bloke, bashed-in cheekbone?"

"There's no one like that on this ward," the nurse said apologetically. "More than that I don't know."

After the nurse had gone, Bodie lay still. He knew better than to try sitting up with possible concussion, and besides, he felt most unlike doing a CI5 Number through the hospital, hunting up one ex-cop with no bloody idea of watching his own back, to make sure that after his partner had been knocked out early this morning the ex-cop hadn't done something bloody silly. Later for that, if he couldn't get some info out of somebody. Anyway, Cowley would be round later, no doubt, to give him a rollicking for being stupid enough to put his head in the way of some thug's blunt instrument. Cowley would know what had happened to Doyle. His mind still dazed, it took him some time to reason that far, but having reached that point, he felt immensely comforted. Cowley would be around.

Drifting somewhere between sleep and waking, following the leaf-pattern on the ceiling, Bodie was roused again to wakefulness a couple of hours later by another nurse coming in.

"What's your name?"

Not again. "Bodie. William Andrew Philip. It's Tuesday the nineteenth of September. I'm in hospital in east London."

The nurse grinned. "Nothing much wrong with you. Concussion and minor bruising, the chart says - knocked down by a car, were you?"

"No, someone hit me," Bodie said with certainty, and then frowned. He was certain of that, though there was a fuzzy blank patch somewhere. Outside in the hall, he could hear suddenly a familiar voice, and involuntarily he grinned.

"Look, I know it's not visiting hours yet," Doyle was saying irritably. "Can read, can't I? I'm going up north for a few days, I won't see him till I come back if I have to wait another hour. Anyway he's in a private room, isn't he? Who am I disturbing?"

Doyle came in through the door; Bodie was slightly surprised he'd bothered to open it first. "Hi, Bodie. Christ, you look terrible. How're you feeling?"

"Headache," Bodie said succinctly.

The nurse glanced at Bodie, glanced at Doyle, grinned at the both of them, and left.

Doyle snickered, sitting down beside the bed. "Yeah, Kenny McCaskall clobbered you with a very large and very blunt instrument, sunshine; you're slipping."

"Thanks. What happened after I was knocked out?"

"I hit Kenny. Then I told Danny if he didn't surrender his kid brother would suddenly be without a head." Doyle shrugged. "So he packed it in, after Kenny had groaned a bit. No guts, that lad."

"So the job's over?"

"Yeah. I reckon you just got knocked out to save yourself doing the paperwork."

Bodie grinned. "That what you've been doing all day?"

"That and getting briefed by the Cow. You're off active duty for a few days, I reckon, because he's sending me up to York with Allinson."

"When?"

"Half an hour ago. Allinson's parked outside. Told me we could spare a few minutes."

"Tell him thanks. Doyle, do us a favour?"

"Yeah, what?"

"Get me something to read from the hospital shop."

"Sure . . . " Doyle froze in the act of standing up, as they both heard a familiar, precise and plummy Scottish voice from the corridor.

"Bodie's in here? Thank you, no, you needn't show me in."

Doyle finished standing, shoving his hands in his pockets, greeting their boss with an apologetic shrug. "Hello, sir."

"4.5, you're supposed to be on your way to York," Cowley greeted him, sandy eyebrows drawing together.

"I am. This is on the route north," Doyle explained.

"Aye, well, now you're here you can run down and buy some grapes."

"Grapes? Yes sir," and Doyle left on the run, no doubt thanking God it was no worse.

Cowley closed the door behind the departing runner and came quietly over to the bed, looking down impassively at the younger man. Bodie's right hand was lying on top of the blankets, and Cowley's hand closed over it. For a moment Bodie just lay there, conscious of a upwelling of sunny warmth focussed in the feel of Cowley's fingers on his, thumb gently rubbing his palm. Then he smiled and curled his hand around Cowley's, enclosing the narrow, smaller hand in his own. Neither of them said anything.

After half a minute Cowley stepped back, letting go of Bodie's hand and folding both of his behind his back. "I take it Doyle told you what happened to the McCaskall brothers?"

"More or less. We got them, then?"

"Aye, we did. Daniel wouldn't talk, but Kenneth is presently spilling his heart to Murphy and Carter."

Bodie grinned, answered briefly by Cowley's dry ironic smile. Murphy was six foot one, impressive to anyone who could be impressed by pure muscle. Carter was easily the most terrifying of CI5 operatives; at one Christmas party she had been given an anonymously wrapped badge inscribed More Deadly Than The Male. Between the two of them there probably wasn't a man they couldn't crack.

"Great," he said sincerely.

"No thanks to you," Cowley added crisply. "What were you thinking about, man, letting a cheap thug like Kenny McCaskall knock you out?"

"Can't remember," Bodie said ruefully. "I'll try not to let it happen again."

Doyle came back through the door, clutching three paperbacks and a paper bag. He handed the bag to Cowley, who put it down on the bedside locker.

"Thank you, sir," Bodie said.

"Mphm. Three days sick leave, 3.7; I'll see you in my office 10 am Saturday." He turned and left, nodding sharply to Doyle on the way out.

Doyle let out a held-in breath. "Mean old bugger!" (Bodie winced.) "He never paid me for the grapes!" Setting down the three paperbacks on the locker, he added "One Miss Marple, one Poirot, one Dick Francis. Sorry, couldn't remember which you'd read."

"Doesn't matter. Didn't they have anything else but murder mysteries?"

"Thought it would be a nice rest for you," Doyle said grinning. "Good clean harmless mayhem."

Bodie grimaced. "Thanks, sunshine. And for the grapes." He knew why Cowley had sent Doyle for them, and could guess why he'd forgotten to pay Doyle the money. Half a minute guaranteed alone to hold Bodie's hand.

"You put your feet up and I'll see you when I get back," Doyle added. He glanced at his watch. "Allinson'll kill me. Bye."

Bodie had been discharged from hospital early afternoon, Wednesday. It was Thursday morning that Kate Ross came in and requested (since Bodie was otherwise unoccupied) to give 3.7 a standard follow-up interview. "I'd have preferred to talk to him earlier, Mr. Cowley, but he always seems to be fully occupied."

"My men are," Cowley observed.

"If he's overworked, all the more reason," Ross said firmly.

"It's been two months since the Williamson affair. Bodie's shown no signs of being in any way adversely affected."

"In his work, possibly," Ross conceded. "But after all, you can hardly speak for his personal life. I just want to talk to him."

"Aye, all right." Cowley was unable to think of any reason to refuse - or any real reason why he should want to, except that Bodie would hate it. "I'll tell him to report to you tomorrow afternoon."

"Two o'clock will do nicely. Thank you, Mr. Cowley."

The phone rang twice in Bodie's flat before the man answered. "Hello?"

"Cowley. 3.7," code for official-not-personal "Doctor Ross wants to give you a follow-up interview tomorrow at her office, two pm."

Bodie sighed down the phone, but didn't argue. "Yes, sir."

"Are you using your sick-leave beneficially, Bodie?"

"I'm reading." He sounded bored.

Cowley's fingers tapped, thoughtfully, on his desk. "You can collect the second volume from my house after eight this evening."

This time, Cowley could almost hear Bodie grinning. "Yes, sir."

Quarter past eight, the doorbell rang. Bodie walked in, hung up his jacket, and drew a deep, blissful breath.

"Hungry?"

Bodie's smile flashed. "Starving." He followed Cowley through to the kitchen and sat down at the table, set for two, looking expectant. The other man took the casserole dish out of the oven, the salad out of the fridge, and the bottle of red wine from the corner where it had been standing uncorked for a little over an hour.

"What is it?" Bodie asked, half way through helping himself to a mound of salad.

"Rabbit."

Bodie's eyebrows quirked. "Been poaching?"

"No, My housekeeper's son raises them in his back garden, so she tells me."

There was a small silence. Bodie seemed quite comfortable, eating Cowley's food and drinking Cowley's wine; but Cowley was not, not altogether. It was not that it was unthinkable for agent 3.7 to have a meal at the controller of CI5's house. It was only different.

Bodie mentioned something about the Christina Hertzog case, and they talked shop for a while.

"What were you reading this afternoon?" Cowley asked.

The other man looked down at his plate, took a piece of rabbit on the end of his fork, and glanced up again, grinning. "Would you believe me if I said Watership Down?"

"I'd say that was carrying coincidence too far."

"You'd be right. Almost, though." Bodie swallowed, took a forkful of lettuce and tomato. "The Plague Dogs. I don't think there's a second volume."

Cowley smiled, a brief sharing of the joke. "No. And have you been spending all your spare time as constructively?"

"Played pool with some of the lads," Bodie shrugged, "and last night Jennifer and I went out for a meal."

The piece of meat Cowley was chewing went cold and tasteless in his mouth. He swallowed it and said, dryly and indifferently, "Mphm. A pleasant evening?"

Bodie finished the last of the rabbit and helped himself to what was left in the casserole dish. On Cowley's raised eyebrows, he added the last couple of spoonfuls to the other man's plate and said casually "Keeps up appearances."

"Aye." Jennifer Black, Ian Barrett's stepdaughter. One of Bodie's girlfriends. "She seemed like a nice lady."

"Yeah." Bodie drank. "She told me about that lunch. She said she'd covered for me."

That Jennifer Black might have mentioned to Bodie the lunch Cowley had had with her two months ago, when Bodie had appeared to be heading straight for the exit from CI5, did not surprise Cowley particularly. "Covered for you?" he asked, frowning.

"She's a lesbian," Bodie said flatly. "We cover for each other."

"That's very . . . convenient."

"Cuts down on the number of women I have to flaunt in front of Doyle and the rest." Bodie gave him a slanting look under heavy eyelids. "By the way, Susan wasn't too pleased."

"Susan?"

"Her girlfriend. She was meeting her for lunch that day."

Cowley cleared his plate, set knife and fork together, and waited for Bodie to finish his larger second helping. "How did you come to know these women?"

Bodie leant back in his chair. "They had some trouble coming out of a gay club one night. I did my knight in shining armour bit, and escorted them back to their flat. Once we'd got to know each other, turned out we had similar problems." Putting his attention again to his plate, he had emptied it in a few minutes, and began to stack the dishes.

"Do you visit places like that often?"

Bodie stopped, looked at Cowley, eyes darker blue. "You know exactly how often I visit them." He started to put the dishes and cutlery in the sink, as Cowley remembered that filing card in Bodie's most personal file, the one no one but Cowley would see so long as he was controller of CI5. Nineteen dates, nineteen names, over the past three years.

"Is that the only kind of woman you . . . go out with?"

Bodie came back to the table, picked up his glass, and sat down, drinking before he answered. "Yeah, except sometimes Doyle's fixed me up with a friend of his out of the kindness of his heart." He shrugged. "Sometimes you have to go through with it."

"And you have no difficulty." To himself, he sounded sharp and on edge.

But Bodie was half-smiling. "No. But I'd rather be here." He glanced around the kitchen, looked directly at Cowley, and the older man found himself staring down into the wineglass in his hand. A compliment form a blue-eyed dark-haired dangerously attractive man was something his varied career had never taught him how to handle.

"What about Marikka?" he asked abruptly, looking up.

Bodie's face changed, so quickly and so rendingly that Cowley said swiftly, "Ach, never mind. None of my business."

"Met her through her brother," Bodie said with difficulty. "Crazy Karl, they called him. Only practicing anarchist I ever met. He's dead too."

Did you love her? Cowley nearly asked, and shut his mouth on the question like a trap. That too was none of his business, and besides, he remembered Bodie yelling down from the high water-tower, sounding half-mad with rage, "That's twice in my life I've trusted you." Maybe for Bodie, that meant more.

"None of my business," Cowley said again. There were regions of his past where he'd sooner Bodie didn't go.

It was nearly ten; they went back through the hall to the sitting-room for the news. Bodie settled himself on the couch, yawning briefly. "Sorry. Ate too much."

"Compliment to the chef." Cowley switched the tv on and sat down beside him.

Bodie's arm slid along the back of the couch, and, not quite as eggshell-cautious as the first time, down across Cowley's shoulders. "Um. You? Thought your housekeeper did the cooking?"

"I'm not completely helpless in the kitchen, Bodie." Cowley neither acknowledged the arm nor shrugged it off. He would not for all the secrets of the KGB have admitted that he liked it.

"I can cook," Bodie protested the jab, but mildly. He yawned again, settled himself heavily against Cowley.

"Frozen food. If you're going to sleep, man, don't dig your elbow in - "

"Sorry," Bodie said through a yawn, and shifted again. By the time the news was half over, he was dozing, though he woke quickly enough when Cowley jerked an elbow in his ribs.

"You'd better go to bed."

"Yeah." Bodie rubbed his eyes, gave Cowley a crooked grin. "Not going to be much use to you tonight."

"Never mind that. Is your head all right?"

"Yeah, it's fine. Tell you the truth, hasn't been a twinge since yesterday."

"I didn't hear a word you said," Cowley said dryly. "Go on, man, get to bed. I've still some work to do."

He came up an hour and a half later, and Bodie was fast asleep in the middle of the bed with most of the quilt wrapped round him. He barely woke when Cowley got in beside him, tugging a share of the quilt away; only enough to throw one heavy, sleepy arm around the other man and bury his head against one wiry shoulder. Bodie's hair still felt like feathers.

Kate Ross was not usually seen around CI5's central HQ; her office, and most of her work, was out at the training centre. Late Friday afternoon, however, she appeared in Cowley's outer office, requesting a word with him. Kirsty showed her in.

"Well, Mr. Cowley, you were right, and I was wrong," she began without preamble. "Bodie does seem to have sorted himself out." She passed her report across to him.

Cowley took his glasses off and held them by one ear-piece, looking at the psychologist with a frown. "Stable?"

Ross sighed. "Mr. Cowley, you know my opinion of the psychological make-up of anyone who risks his life as cheerfully as Bodie does. But given that, then yes, he's stable." She tapped the beige file, smiling. "It's all in my report, but if you want it in layman's terms, he's happy."

"Thank you, Doctor Ross."

Saturday, Sunday, and half of Monday, until Doyle was back from York, Bodie spent, bored, in Records. And when Doyle was back, Cowley put them both on to a trailing job, about which he told them so little that Bodie almost suspected that it was all he knew. It went smoothly until the man caught sight of Bodie for the second time, when he was in Kensington, and took fright. He and Doyle chased him into a block of flats; their minds working together, Bodie took the lift to the top floor, Doyle would work up stair by stair from the ground. They should be able to corner him.

Coming down the stairs to the third floor, he heard a door open and Doyle saying hastily "OK, love, don't get frightened. Just go back inside, please."

Standing on the stairs waiting for the woman to go back inside where she wouldn't get hurt, Bodie saw the door one along, behind Doyle, crash open. "Look out!"

His gun spoke, once; the man dropped. Doyle had shoved the woman back into her own doorway, out of harm's way. Seeing that neither of them were hurt, Bodie went past them to the man whose name he still didn't know, to find out if he was alive or dead.

Dead. Shoot to kill. Bodie's mouth twisted sourly. "Better call HQ," he said over his shoulder to Doyle.

An ambulance and a police car turned up, and Cowley, moments later. Having seen the body of the man he'd killed into the ambulance, Bodie turned and went back to the red Escort, hearing in the tone of his partner's voice rather than the words that Doyle was on the defensive. " . . . nothing we could have done, sir. There he was."

"Ah, it's unfortunate. I wanted him alive, I told you."

"Yeah, well, that's about all you did tell us!" Bodie snapped, on the offensive. "What were we following him for anyway?"

"To observe and report," Cowley snapped back. He had been leaning up against the car to talk to Doyle, but as Bodie came to stand at Doyle's shoulder, Cowley went back around the car to the door on the driver's side. "The last thing I wanted was any shooting."

"Oh yeah? Well, why didn't you tell him that. He had a thirty-eight on Doyle, what was I supposed to do?"

"Aye . . ." Cowley unlocked the door. "D'you want a lift?"

"Yeh," Bodie said shortly, and was getting in before he thought about the fact that Doyle was still standing there, that Doyle's car was parked the other side of this housing estate, and that reasonably Doyle might expect that the offer of the lift included him as well.

Doyle leant down and grinned at him. "Ah - see you later." Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back to the block of flats; Bodie slammed the door, and Cowley drove off.

"Who was he?" Bodie asked after a moment.

"Who?"

"The man I killed," Bodie expanded. He was on edge himself.

"Why d'you want to know?"

"Yeah, well, I might want to send flowers with a card, y'know, it's not every day I kill someone I don't know."

His voice was abrasive, but Cowley's sideways glance contained a certain amount of understanding. "His name was Conroy. Walter John Conroy." Unasked, he added "Had a tip that he knows a man who's into a lot of dirty business."

"Our sort of business, eh?"

"Maybe. Or maybe some run-of-the-mill criminal matter to be passed over to the boys in blue. Now we may never know."

There was silence for a few minutes, and then Bodie asked neutrally "You don't mind about Wednesday night?"

Cowley drew up sharply at traffic-lights suddenly turned red. "Don't be a damned idiot," he answered. "You're free tonight?"

"Yeah," Bodie said, slouching back with an uncomplicated grin.

Bodie was waiting for Cowley as he came out of HQ. The file on Conroy was sketchy.

"What's the verdict?"

"Conroy was a pro." Cowley answered. In a way it was reassurance, that Bodie hadn't been wrong to kill him, even if it was annoying. "Clean as a whistle."

Bodie shoved his hands in his pockets, his mouth twisting in sardonic amusement.

"Or anything. They went over him with a fine tooth comb."

"And?"

"Not much." Cowley stopped by his car, tapping absently at the file. "Except that he must have like Italian food. Traces of pasta were found."

"Down his tie?"

"On his shoes. Both shoes, deep in the welts."

"What, he waded in pasta?"

"Mhm. Doubt if you'd get that from a restaurant, but you might if you were invited into the kitchen."

"Sounds like Doyle's job. He's the one with the Italian contacts."

Cowley nodded, agreement and dismissal, and went round to the driver's side; Bodie left him, turning across the car park to his Capri. Cowley did not watch him go; he had an appointment with the Minister at half past ten, about an operation that had nothing to do with this one, and barely ten minutes to reach Whitehall.

Doyle called in word of the assault on his informer, Benny Crolla, several hours later, and that he had been taken to hospital with barely a ten percent chance of survival. As soon as he could spare the time, which was not until late that evening, Cowley went there.

In a job that had more than it's share of unpleasantness, this was not one of the least; to stand over a boy (he must be twenty-four; he looked intolerably young) and watch him die, and try to make him speak before he died.

It was dark outside, and cold; but Bodie was standing in the entrance, the collar of his jacket pulled up, waiting for him. "Well, sir?"

Cowley shook his head, getting into the car.

"Well, I'm not going to be the one to tell him," Bodie said flatly, slamming the door and starting up the engine. He drove straight to Doyle's flat in silence, but as Cowley opened the door, he added, with an effort "Want me to come in with you?"

"No," Cowley said shortly. "My job." He went briskly to the door and signalled the intercom. Doyle let him in and he climbed the stairs, ignoring minor complaints from his leg. It gave him time to rehearse his opening line and expression.

"Ah, sorry to disturb you, Doyle - " and stopped short, realising that a young woman was sitting at the table, eating supper with Doyle. "Can we talk?"

"Yeah," Doyle gestured back through to the hall.

"Excuse me," Cowley said politely to the woman, and retreated.

"Sorry," Doyle added lightly, and followed him, closing the door. He stood with his back against the wall, as if protecting himself against what he knew Cowley was going to say next.

"Benny's dead."

Doyle said nothing. After a moment he nodded.

"I'm sorry, Doyle, I know you liked Benny."

"It's all part of the job." He swallowed. "Anyway, he was just an informer, wasn't he."

Cowley nodded. If that was the way Doyle wanted to cope with it, that was his business. "Yes." He glanced up, briefly, at Doyle's face. "And he spoke before he died. `Dumbo'. That mean anything?"

"Nah . . . `Jumbo', that meant something big. Benny liked using codes."

"I thought it was `dumbo'," Cowley said thoughtfully, "but anyway, something big. And he said `the Christmas man'."

"Christmas man?" Doyle shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Doyle said more sharply, "`course I'm sure, the Christmas man, no."

"But, something big, eh?" Cowley nodded. "All right." He turned to go. "Oh, and - Benny - we'll be sending a wreath, of course."

Outside in the dark he could hear a dog barking somewhere. The car was warm by comparison with the street outside. Bodie turned to look at him as he closed the door. "How did he take it?"

"Ah, he's not easy to read." He glanced towards the building. "Who's the girl?"

"Girl?"

"Red-head. Green eyes. Petite."

Cowley could hear the amusement in Bodie's voice. "What - he's got her in there?"

"Yes."

Bodie started to laugh. "The crafty randy old toad! Oh, she sounds like the girl he met at the flats - you know, when I shot Conroy."

He started the car and drove off. Cowley settled back in his seat, thinking. It could, of course, be pure coincidence - a woman picking Doyle up or vice versa was hardly an unusual event - but a woman who lived in the same block of flats, on the same floor that Conroy had chosen for refuge; that might not be coincidence. Cowley did not like coincidences.

"What's bothering you?" Bodie asked casually.

"Ach, nothing." It was probably nothing at all.

It wasn't for another five days that Bodie had any chance to see Cowley alone. This was not unusual; Cowley habitually worked solidly eight to eight, whether in his inner office guarded by Kirsty or out gathering up tangles after his operatives or limping the corridors of power. The only place, apart from Cowley's own home (not, and never, Bodie's) was in either the silver Capri or the red Escort. Or, of course, the inner office well after six, when Kirsty would have gone home along with the rest of the office staff and most of the operatives. Including Doyle, who had a date with Ann.

They talked formally about the drugs drop; Cowley was dismissive. It was a matter for the Drug Squad, really; but Cowley had a habit of keeping a finger in every pie. A plane and a Christmas man. Cowley turned back to the filing cabinets. "Aye. Well, that's Doyle's forte. I'll put him out in the streets, undercover."

"Yeah, well, you'd better be quick about it, sir - he's going to stick out like a sore thumb in his morning suit."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Bodie snickered. "Oh, nothing, maybe . . . but I think spring's come a bit early for him this year."

"That girl?" Cowley sounded serious.

"Yeah. Bit tasty, mind."

Cowley ignored the last comment. "And you think it's serious?"

"Mm." He thought about it. "Well. Nah, it's just a passing fancy, but . . . "

"But what?"

"Well, he may not be pulling the rope, but he's certainly hearing those bells."

Cowley set the file he'd been leafing through on the cabinet, and turned back to his desk. "Well, that's your job."

"Eh?"

Putting his glasses on, Cowley sat down to the stacked paperwork. "To check her out."

"Ah, come on!" Bodie moved closer to the desk, looking down at Cowley's bent head. "Doyle's girlfriend?"

"Would have to be checked out if he wants to marry her. No operatives can marry without my permission."

"Didn't know that."

"It's in the small print." Cowley looked up, meeting Bodie's eyes, and added dryly "And anyway, it's not ever likely to affect you, is it."

"Thanks," Bodie murmured, just as dryly. "Yeah, well, we don't know he's going to get married yet, do we?"

"Well, when he does, if he does, I'll be able to smile benevolently and say yes, won't I?" Cowley glanced back down at the report he was reading. "Check her out."

Dismissed, Bodie turned towards the door, muttering "Don't believe you could smile benevolently." He had intended to be overheard.

Checking up on Ann Holly had proved to be mainly checking up on her father, her only living relative. Ann herself seemed to be precisely what she said she was. Bodie spent most of the day after the unfruitful interview with Cowley confirming it, and having got himself invited to supper with the two of them, made a few delicate probes about relatives.

Ann didn't seem to care or know if her father was alive or dead, but Cowley wouldn't take that as an answer. The next morning Bodie drove down to the village where Charles Holly lived, off the A3 out to Basingstoke. It all seemed to be clear enough, but Bodie left an automatic camera focussed on Holly's front door.

Cowley had gone home early (for him) from HQ. That made it a week, damn and blast the cold blooded bastard. Instead of going back to his own flat, Bodie turned his car towards Doyle's, who was just going out for a meal with Ann. His own flat was cold and deserted. Bodie was rummaging through the freezer for tonight's meal when the phone rang.

He was unable to prevent the broad grin that spread across his face at the precise Scottish voice. "Hello, sir," he said formally. It was just as likely to be a night operation for CI5.

"Are you free tonight?"

"Was going out with Doyle, but he's occupied; yeah." The grin got broader.

"Ten o'clock," said Cowley, and put the phone down.

Several hours later, the two of them were lying together under the heavy quilt in the darkened bedroom, Bodie's arm flung as usual over Cowley's waist. He should be going to sleep, but his mind was still running. He knew Cowley was still awake, and muttered into the concealing dark, "I'm worried."

"Mphm?"

"About Doyle."

"What about him?" Cowley said sharply.

"Him and Ann. Oh, it's not that - " correctly interpreting Cowley's sudden alertness - "she's not involved in anything crooked, and I doubt her father is. But she's not right for him, and he's obsessed with her." Bodie had never seen Doyle this involved with anyone before, and could wish it was anyone but Ann Holly. She was as wrong for him as he was wrong for her. She was cool, he was hot, she was elegant, he was scruffy, she probably held long cold grudges, Doyle lost his temper explosively and then forgot - and both of them seemed to be wilfully blind to it or else assuming the other one would change. Bodie didn't give a damn about Ann, but Doyle was going to be hurt. He was trying to find words to explain this all to Cowley.

The other man had waited a moment, but as Bodie said nothing further, he said crisply. "Never come between a man and his woman, Bodie."

Proverbs. Bodie rolled over, away from Cowley, to lie facing out the other side of the bed. There was cold spreading in his gut. Helpful bloody heterosexual aphorisms were the last bloody thing he wanted right now.

There was a moment's pause, and then the bed shifted slightly and Bodie felt a wiry arm close round him. "Aye, he's your partner. I'm sorry."

Bodie turned, shoving a reciprocal arm round Cowley's waist. "Yeah," he said wearily.

In the morning, nothing was said. Bodie mentioned he'd be going to pick up the automatic camera; Cowley nodded. "When the film's been developed, bring it to me."

Bodie had slept in the back of Cowley's car; Cowley had not slept at all. It was nearly noon before they got Charles Holly and the rest back to HQ and into the interrogation rooms. Doyle was attempting to clear Ann Holly's possible involvement out of the way when there was a noise in the hall outside, and he whipped round and tore out of the door.

From the voices, it was Ann herself; Bodie had moved to the door and was standing by it, his face absolutely expressionless. Then the sound of two people running, and Bodie moved to follow them.

"Bodie!" Cowley snapped. "Just leave them."

"What the hell's going on here?" Charles Holly demanded, evidently having recognised the voice of his daughter.

With quick strides Bodie went to the window, lifted the shades, and looked out. Voices didn't carry, but the muffled sound of a car driving off did. He turned again from the window and went back to the door, jerking it open.

"Bodie."

The dark man leant against the side of the doorway, letting out an audible sigh, and turned, then. Cowley met the dark blue gaze. "Yeah, I know, `never come between a man and his woman'" Bodie said with a kind of weary anger. "What about a man on his own that's taken a bit of stick? Got a proverb for that?" And with that he was gone, the door closed behind him and footsteps echoing away down the hall.

For a moment Cowley sat still as if carved in stone, feeling cold snarling anger like a wolf tearing at him. He got up abruptly, his leg beginning to complain again, and turned to the window. Doyle was standing in the middle of the car park; Bodie had just come out of the building, and went up to him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

Cowley saw Doyle shrug it off, turn and walk away; but he stopped only a few yards off, and Bodie went to him again. They walked away together.

Jealousy. Fierce, bitter, furious, snarling jealousy. Cowley cursed himself silently for a moment, repressing what he felt tightly down and turning back to the interrogation.

It was an hour later that the phone rang in the outer office, and Kirsty said - just as Cowley was going out the door again - "It's 3.7 on the phone, sir."

"Cowley," he said briskly.

"I'm at 4.5's flat, sir. When shall I report back?"

"I'll be at HQ until eight o'clock and at my own home after that."

"Right, sir."

"How is 4.5?"

"How d'you expect?" Bodie asked, and put the phone down.

He had called Cowley briefly when Doyle was out of the room. He had practice in reading the other man's code; this meant, I want to see you this evening.

It was past nine when Doyle finally went to sleep. Bodie had driven him home and spent most of the afternoon pouring booze into Doyle and listening to him. He had gone through the various stages of drunkenness from abusive to maudlin before lack of sleep and too much alcohol eventually caught up with him. Bodie hauled him upstairs to his bed and tucked a blanket over him.

His own car was . . . back at HQ? Yes, though he hadn't used it since yesterday afternoon. He caught a taxi.

Cowley let him in and went straight back through to the sitting room while Bodie was still hanging up his jacket. With a shrug, Bodie followed.

"How is 4.5?"

"First he blamed you, me, God, and her dad. Then he started blaming himself. Then he went to sleep. Whether he'll still be blaming you and me when he wakes up, I don't know."

"He has no reason to blame either of us," Cowley said crisply.

"Oh yeah?" Bodie leant back against the door. "You sent me to check up on her; I don't suppose he'll forget that."

"It's your job, 3.7."

"My name's Bodie - remember?"

There was a moment's pause, and then Cowley turned away and limped across to the decanter, pouring himself another glass of whisky.

"You drink too much," Bodie said harshly.

"It's none of your business."

"No, it's none of my business. It's none of my business if you drink yourself to death."

Cowley put the glass down on the table and set his hands flat on the wood, not turning. "Painkillers don't work any more," he said finally, a form of explanation. "They haven't for years."

Crossing the room quickly. Bodie laid an arm around the wiry shoulders of the stubborn, smaller man who had fought a personal battle against pain for over thirty years. Cowley straightened, taking his hands from the table, still standing within the circle of Bodie's arm.

"Aye, well," he said after a brief moment. "D'you want a cup of coffee? Something to eat?"

Bodie shook his head. "Let's go to bed."

---

Part 3: "Step closer, Love"

Three weeks after Ann Holly had driven out of Doyle's life, he and Bodie were working late in Records. They were trying, probably futilely, to get some sort of lead on one Simon Charteris, who might not be in Britain at all. It was nearly eight when Doyle stood up and stretched. "I'm for some coffee. Want a cup?"

"If I stay here much longer I'm going to fossilise," Bodie said. "I'm finishing this last stack and then I'm off."

"Yeah, me too," Doyle agreed, "but I need coffee."

The nearest coffee machine was down a flight of stairs; as he came back up, he heard Cowley through the door.

"Working late, Bodie?"

"Almost finished for tonight."

"Want to go for a drink?"

"Yeah." Doyle could hear Bodie grinning. "I'll be out in a minute."

As he came through the door, the door on the other side of the room was swinging shut. Doyle sat down on the other side of the table with his coffee as Bodie stood up and began putting his files away.

"You off, then?" Doyle asked, as Bodie reached for his jacket and started to pull it on. Bodie paused and glanced at him. "Yeah. See you tomorrow, sunshine."

Doyle had been expecting Bodie to say "The Cow's asked us out for a drink, are you coming?"; so much so, that he had drunk half his coffee before properly taking in that Bodie had not even mentioned it.

Stacking the files back, he went down the half-darkened stairs and let himself out. Well, he'd take himself for a drink, then. The bar closest to HQ, which was almost a CI5 local, had no familiar red Escort or silver Capri parked outside. In fact, for once, there was no one in the bar he knew at all.

Why had Cowley asked Bodie for a drink, and not Doyle? Well, Cowley might have thought that Doyle had already gone home, but Bodie knew he hadn't. Why had Bodie accepted without including Doyle.

Maybe they were planning to discuss a job Doyle wasn't going to be in on? But in that case, why not Cowley's office?

He bought a second drink and took it back to the table, still puzzling. Cowley didn't buy anyone a drink that often, let alone one of his operatives; except perhaps at the end of a thunderingly successful operation. And they were only in the middle of trying to identify who Simon Charteris was this time, if he was here at all, and anyway, why hadn't Bodie invited Doyle along?

In the weeks since Ann left a Holly-shaped gap in Doyle's life, Bodie had been trying (with all the tact that was in him, Doyle noted with another grin) to keep Doyle thoroughly occupied. There'd been evenings when he'd gone off on his own, but he'd never have - never had before - gone off for a drink after work without Doyle.

This is all a bit childish, Doyle thought, but why didn't they invite me along? He frowned. Maybe Cowley wanted to talk to Bodie about Doyle? Has agent 4.5 recovered from the Holly case? The obvious solution. Doyle went home.

After he'd finished supper - a Chinese takeaway, he couldn't be bothered cooking - Doyle rang Bodie, intending to pump him about what Cowley had said, but he wasn't in. Must have gone out again. If he'd rung earlier he might have caught him.

It took a week to track Simon Charteris down, and they had some small trouble clearing it up. Cowley came out to the airport (to make sure, Doyle commented with a sideways grin at Bodie, that Charteris really was out of the country) and when the plane had lifted off, informed them both that he'd expect them in his office, eight am.

Doyle nodded and, pulling his keys out of his pocket, began to head back to his car. Cowley said briskly to Bodie, "Want a lift?"

"Yeah," Bodie agreed.

Doyle turned and looked after them, frowning.

Cowley had a stack of reports sitting on the passenger seat. Bodie shoved them onto the back seat and grinned as Cowley closed the door. "I'm cooking?"

"No," Cowley said precisely, starting the engine, "but there's probably something in the freezer that you won't be able to muck up."

"Thanks."

Bodie went through to the kitchen; Cowley took the reports into the sitting room. Setting the oven and putting a frozen ready-made shepherd's pie in took less than five minutes; he went back to the sitting-room and, seeing Cowley occupied, wandered over to the bookshelves and sat down in the deep armchair that stood within arm's reach.

Most of the books on these shelves were old but in good condition; a few, scattered here and there, were scruffy and battered as if they had been read almost to pieces. Interested - what kind of books did Cowley read to death? - Bodie began pulling the battered ones carefully off the shelves. There was a one-volume Shakespeare, including the sonnets, and another of the Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron. An especially battered collection of John Donne's poetry, and Bodie grinned - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Further along, there was a whole shelf of Kipling, of which the scruffy volumes were both Jungle Books, Kim, and Stalky & Co. A couple of Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey novels, The Nine Tailors and Gaudy Night, also seemed to have been read to death. When he noticed the two small volumes of Dumas, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Bodie added them to the motley collection.

By the look of them, the books on these shelves were the ones Cowley had acquired a long time ago - before WW2, maybe. He checked inside a copy of Kai Lung's Golden Hours and confirmed it; in the familiar handwriting, George Cowley, 1935. Bodie slid that book with it's well-cared-for kindred and turned to the battered volumes on the floor.

Or maybe Cowley had bought some of them second-hand. Bodie had to puzzle to make out the name inside Kim - Mark Baccatt? Barratt? but the handwriting became easier by practice with each volume. It was easiest of all to read inside the volume of John Donne, because it was in Cowley's handwriting, clear as print; To Captain Mark Barrett, December 1943.

Bodie glanced over at the desk. Cowley was just setting one report on the completed stack. "Who's Mark Barrett?"

The chair swung round abruptly and Cowley snapped, "What?"

Bodie picked up a book and waved it, quirking an eyebrow. "His name's inside all these books."

Cowley took a breath and said quite levelly "He was a friend of mine."

"Close friend?"

"Mind your own goddamned business, Bodie," the other man barked, and turned back to his desk, opening another report. "If you haven't got anything better to do, go and make me some coffee."

Bodie shrugged and got up. It was time he checked on the shepherd's pie anyway, and at least Cowley had remembered his name was Bodie. When he came back, carrying a couple of mugs of coffee, the other man was still staring at the first page of that report. Bodie set the mug with the sweetened black coffee carefully down at Cowley's elbow, and put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry."

Cowley glanced up briefly. "I shouldn't have shouted."

"I'm a nosy bastard." He turned away and went back to the bookshelves, putting his own coffee down and beginning to return the books to where they had come from.

He heard Cowley clear his throat. "Mark died thirty-five years ago." After a moment, the other man left the desk and came over to sit in the chair beside the bookshelves, watching Bodie put the books away.

"You were in the war together?"

"Aye. He was killed at the battle of Camaar. I stopped the bullet in my leg a couple of months later."

Bodie looked up. "Ah, it wasn't the Spanish Civil War, then?"

"What?"

"Everyone says around the Squad that you hurt your leg in the Spanish Civil War . . . " Bodie's voice trailed off. Cowley was, almost, laughing.

"You're a load of bloody dramatists. I was still at school."

At a loose end, Doyle rang Bodie's flat and got no answer. He must have gone out for the evening. He wished Cowley hadn't given Bodie a lift home; if Doyle had driven him back, they could have talked over the Charteris case and arranged to go out for a drink.

Why had Cowley offered Bodie a lift? Doyle could perfectly well have run Bodie back to his flat. Thinking back, over the past two or three months, it seemed to have become a regular thing. Which was as strange as Cowley asking Bodie out for a drink.

Doyle frowned. This was pointless. He went through to the kitchen half of the living room and began to put a meal together. Unlike Bodie, Doyle enjoyed cooking, when he had time for it.

But the thought remained, as he chopped the vegetables and the bacon and stirred the rice. Cowley and Bodie, friends? OK, so Cowley had always had a soft spot for Bodie - let him get away with stuff anyone else would be stamped into the ground for trying, always had - but suppose it was more than that? Maybe when Cowley offered Bodie a lift they went off for a drink together? Wonder what they talk about - what the hell have Bodie and Cowley got in common?

Well, the Army, but he couldn't imagine that for a regular drinking subject. Doyle heaped rice on his plate, added the stir-fried vegetables and meat, and sat down to it, taking the wine from the fridge and pouring himself a glass. He ate desultorily and drank with more concentration.

He was nearly at the end of the bottle when he thought, Maybe Cowley's grooming Bodie for succession to Controller? Doyle spluttered with amusement. Nah, you needed diplomacy as well as intelligence, and Bodie was never diplomatic. Or maybe (Dole grinned) they're having a mad passionate affair.

Nah, he couldn't imagine Cowley having it off with anyone. Anyway, he didn't think the boss was Bodie's type - though mind you, all he knew for sure about Bodie's male predilections was that he wasn't Bodie's type.

He lay back and laughed, finishing off the wine with a flourish. "You've had too much to drink, sunshine," he said out loud. "Time for bed."

But the thought stuck with him. Not in working hours, for the most part; one look at Cowley and he could see exactly what a ridiculous idea it was. He thought about asking Bodie, once or twice, when they were out for a drink together in the evenings, but refrained. Bodie would die laughing and then hit Doyle, or hit Doyle and then die laughing.

From that evening when he had found out about Mark Barrett, Bodie had in the back of his mind the project of trying to discover more about him. Unfortunately, the avenues of exploration were was limited. There were the Army lists, of course, from which he found out that Mark Barrett, born May 1921, had enlisted at the beginning of the war. He had been made second lieutenant in 1940, first lieutenant in 1941 - just a month before Cowley had enlisted, as Bodie discovered from the next volume of the lists. He had been promoted to captain in December 1943, and six months later he had been killed. That was as much as the Army lists could tell him; and though Bodie had contacts in that regiment through which he could find out more, that would undoubtedly, eventually, come to Cowley's notice.

In fact, there was nothing further he could find out about Mark Barrett that wouldn't eventually bring Bodie's investigations to Cowley's notice. Bodie grinned to himself; the direct route appealed to him anyway.

Doyle waved a hand in front of his face. "What are you standing there smirking to yourself about?"

"There was this air hostess - " Bodie said smugly, only to be interrupted by Kirsty.

"All right, he's free. You can go in now."

By the look on Cowley's face; his leg was hurting him. Nothing Doyle would notice; a slight comprehension of the jaw muscles, a tightening of the lines about his eyes. "Morning, sir," Bodie said impassively, and Doyle echoed him more cheerfully.

"Good morning, 3.7, 4.5. 3.7, do you still have a contact with the weapons traders?"

"Yes, sir." Bodie cocked an eyebrow. "Someone been exporting something they shouldn't?"

With controlled exasperation, Cowley shoved a handful of photographs across the desk. "Look at these."

They'd been taken on ordinary Instamatic film, by the look of them; but the subjects were anything but ordinary. Bodie heard Doyle breathe in, sharply; and said out loud, to cover it, "Napalm?"

"Yes."

"Where were these taken?"

"We don't know. They were posted in Islington late Wednesday. They arrived at the Minister's office yesterday morning, and he called me immediately. The envelope and the film have both been analysed, without any useful information resulting, except that the photographs were taken recently."

The photographs were of animals; a couple of horses, several large dogs. All of them were dead; at least, any animal lover would have hoped so. They had been burnt, horrifyingly; some of them were still burning. The background of the photographs showed only the anonymous concrete of any holding area anywhere in the world.

"God," Doyle said at last. "Someone's importing napalm?"

"It's possible," Cowley said grimly. "Check it out, both of you. Report back soonest. I sent 2.4 and 1.8 out to Islington, but if the envelope was posted from there I don't suppose that's where the napalm is."

"Right, sir."

Once outside, Bodie shoved Doyle towards the duty room. "You go and get some coffee for the both of us - I'll ring Marty." You didn't get used to the sight of what napalm did to a living body, but Bodie had seen it before, and not in photographs. Doyle hadn't.

When he came back from a brief conversation with Martell, Doyle was sitting with his coffee untouched in front of him, staring down at it. He glanced up as Bodie sat, and said, "Terrorist group?"

"Probably," Bodie shrugged.

"Why did they send that collection of photos?"

"Exhibitionist terrorist group?" Bodie grinned. "I'm meeting Marty at twelve o'clock. He said not to bring you."

"Eh?" Doyle frowned. "Why not?" He sounded affronted, and Bodie grinned again, pleased at having distracted him.

"Well, actually, what he said was `Don't bring that curly-haired ex-cop with you this time.' I don't think he likes you," Bodie added mournfully, and drank his coffee.

"Where are you meeting him?"

"Kew gardens."

"Does he have something against the indoors?"

"Yeah. It's harder to bug the great outdoors." That and that running into an old friend on a cross-river ferry or in Kew gardens could be considered coincidence, if anyone happened to have either of them under observation. This was second nature for Martell.

In the car (Doyle's) Doyle said abruptly "Is it safe you going into meet this guy on your own?"

"What? Marty?" Bodie shrugged. "Look, I wouldn't say that Marty wouldn't kill me, if he thought he had to - but he's a pro. He'd do it right. And it wouldn't be some time when he'd just made an appointment to meet me." He slouched more comfortably, and added "Nah. Long distance target shooting, that's the way Marty would kill someone."

"He couldn't be involved in this napalm import business?"

Bodie fell silent, thinking it over. "I doubt it. Marty does guns, not chemical weapons. He thinks they're messy."

Some time later, strolling through the autumn gardens, Martell said just that. "But, my dear chap, you know I don't deal with napalm and so on. So messy. A pro keeps it simple."

"I know," Bodie agreed. "But you do have connections with people who do."

"Perhaps," Martell conceded. "Off the record, Bodie - perhaps."

"How about keeping your ear to the ground, for a while?"

Martell sighed. "For goodwill again, dear chap?"

"Goodwill," Bodie agreed, grinning. "If we wanted to, y'know, we could easily prove you were involved in some not quite legal gun-running."

Martell looked resigned, correctly identifying the situation Bodie was referring to. "Ah, that was a mistake, Bodie. I was doing a favour for a friend. If I'd known what the cargo was, I wouldn't have touched it myself."

"I'm sure," Bodie agreed. "It'll sound very convincing, when you've polished it a bit more."

They walked on round the circuit, exchanging news about various mutual acquaintances; Kramer was keeping a bar in Minneapolis, would you believe it? and Morley - not Neil, Neil was dead now, John Morley - had settled down with a wife and three kids in Kenya. Gregory was in South America, and doing very nicely for himself. "He asked to be remembered to you, Bodie. Said if you ever need a job, there'll always be a place open for you."

Bodie glanced around him, at the peaceful autumn day. "Won't be for a while."

They had reached Martell's car, and shook hands formally. "Remember, if you do hear anything . . . "

"I'll pass it on," Marty said.

"Great." Bodie turned back across the gardens to the gate where Doyle was parked waiting for him.

Cowley hauled them both into his office when it was past seven o'clock; he was tapping the desk as he listened to their essentially negative reports. "One thing, sir," Bodie added. "Those photographs. Why were they sent?"

"To convince us this group, whoever they are, mean business," Cowley said testily.

"Was there a note enclosed? A threat? A demand?"

Cowley shook his head, watching Bodie intently. "It could be the first stage in a gradual build-up of terror."

"Yeah, it could," Bodie agreed, frowning. "But those photos didn't look like they'd been posed for effect. I was wondering if maybe someone in the group's got a conscience about what they're planning?"

The older man snorted. "A terrorist with a conscience?"

"Napalm's not nice stuff," Bodie said with a twisted, edged grin. "I've know mercs with no qualms about gunning people down not use firejelly."

"We've been working on the import angle all day," Doyle said. "But look here, sir; napalm's just jellied petroleum. Maybe not the kind of stuff you'd just brew up in your back garden, but not that difficult to make. Suppose someone's manufacturing it?"

"Mphm," Cowley said thoughtfully. "3.7?"

"Yeah," Bodie agreed, "it's possible."

"It still doesn't give us much of an angle, though." Cowley's fingers recommenced their drumming on his desk. "All right, off home with the pair of you. I'll see you in my office, eight am sharp."

"Yes, sir," Doyle said, pushing himself to his feet, echoed a moment later by Bodie. They were out of the door and half-way down the corridor when Bodie realised, with loud, public annoyance, that he'd forgotten to include the notes of his conversation with Marty with his report.

"The Cow'll kill you," Doyle said cheerfully.

"Nah, what I'll do is tuck them in the end of my report." Bodie glanced at his watch. "He might not have got around to reading mine yet - might not bite my head off."

"You'll be lucky," Doyle prophesied gleefully, and leant against the wall of the corridor as Bodie headed back to Cowley's office. He was back inside five minutes, unscathed, grinning. "He was tut-tutting over all your spelling mistakes," he told Doyle cheerfully. "Wanted to know where you'd gone to school."

"He knows - " Doyle said unwarily, and Bodie thumped him on the shoulder.

He was whistling, off-key, all the way down the stairs. In the doorway, Doyle asked "Coming out for a drink tonight?"

Bodie shook his head. "Nah. I'm staying in. Might get some serious sleeping done."

"Want a lift back to your place?" Doyle had his keys out already, but Bodie shook his head.

"Don't bother, sunshine. I'll get a taxi."

Later that night, when Doyle, calling himself every kind over-imaginative idiot, phoned Bodie's flat, he got no answer, though he let the phone ring for several long minutes. And he hadn't seen Bodie catch that taxi.

Once inside the house, Bodie put his arm firmly around Cowley, supporting most of the weight of his bad side and neatly removing the briefcase from Cowley's hand. "Your leg's been killing you all day, hasn't it?"

It had, but Cowley made no answer. He accepted Bodie's help over to the couch, though, and, shrugging off his coat, lay down with a grunt of relief. "I need to read through 2.9's report, and 1.8 and 2.4's tonight."

"I'll get them," Bodie said briskly, stepping through to the hall with his jacket and Cowley's coat and bringing back the case. "Supper?"

"Freezer or fridge," Cowley said economically, opening the briefcase and starting on Murphy's report. Bodie went through to the kitchen.

He came back after a few minutes, and went to the windows to draw the curtains before switching on the centre light. Cowley glanced over at him when he sat down on the chair by the bookshelves, looking oddly rueful.

"Mrs Adler left salad in the fridge for one, and lasagne in the oven, also for one. I put a couple of potatoes on to bake, and I could scramble some eggs - "

"I daresay," Cowley murmured dryly.

The other man grimaced. "I can cook eggs."

Cowley went back to Murphy's report. He vaguely heard Bodie shifting in his seat, and then stillness; and when he glanced up again, turning to Blake's report, the man was reading. You never quite got to the end of Bodie; from the way he talked most of the time you'd think the only thing he read was page 3 of the Sun, but here he was reading for choice - what?

"What are you reading?"

Bodie did not look up. "The Three Musketeers," he said absently.

"Are you enjoying it?"

"I'd forgotten how funny it was," Bodie said, eyes still on the page, grinning to himself. "Hysterical historical."

Silence fell again, only the mellow ticking of the clock and the occasional suppressed snicker from Bodie disturbing the peace of the room. Edding's report joined Blake's and Murphy's; this time, though, when he looked across at Bodie the man was sitting looking at him, holding the book in one hand as if he had half-forgotten it. Deliberately, seeing Cowley's eyes on him, he looked down at the title page where Mark had scrawled his name. "What was he like?"

I should have thrown the books out with the snapshots. "What d'you mean?" Cowley barked.

"Well . . . " Bodie shrugged, "What did he look like?"

"Five foot eight, fair hair, blue eyes . . . "Cowley began to rap out a military description, but trailed off, remembering with cursed vividness. "He used to crack his knuckles, drove me crazy."

Bodie stood up and came across the room, sitting down quite casually on the floor by the couch. Drawing back from memory, Cowley snapped "Why do you want to know?"

"I was wondering if he looked like me," Bodie said quietly, but there was enough expression in his voice to read. Wondering . . . worrying?

He was quite close, though not touching, just sitting, and his eyes were dark blue. Cowley reached out to touch and hold the back of Bodie's neck with one hand. "No," he said quite truthfully, "he was nothing at all like you."

Bodie leant forward, planting an elbow on the couch, and kissed him. He stayed there, leaning over Cowley, hesitating a moment as though expecting a reprimand, and kissed him again, slower this time. He pulled back, one hand on Cowley's shoulder, stroking him through the thin silk with his thumb. "Did you love him?"

He was still clasping the back of Bodie's neck, and let his hand curve upwards into the feathery hair. "We never talked about it," he said thoughtfully. "It sometimes seems, after so long, as if we never - really - talked at all. You asked what he was like, Bodie; I could tell you every damned mannerism he had, I could tell you what he read, what plays he wanted to see, what his favourite food was, why he liked Bach rather than Beethoven, but what he was like? He's dead." Cowley's voice trailed off again. He was remembering, more vividly than he liked, both an early morning when Mark had been shot and another early morning, far more recent, when Bodie had been running with a bomb strapped to his chest and Doyle racing after him, and himself, trapped with a gammy leg, unable to do anything but stand with a stiff face and wait. Even if Bodie had been killed, Cowley could have said nothing, done nothing, that he would not have done for any other agent; send a CI5 wreath to his funeral. And, if there was nothing more vital to be done that day, even go and stand by the grave.

No, not even that; Bodie had requested cremation. Bodie was still leaning over him, hand warm on his shoulder, vital and alive, and he could feel the pulse in his neck. "Aye, I loved him," Cowley said baldly. "But he's long dead." He felt a shiver go up the other man's neck, though his hand and face were still. "What are you thinking, man?"

Bodie grinned, but sounded rueful. "I was wondering why you want me, if it's not because I remind you of Mark."

"You're damned attractive," Cowley said, "and you know it."

"Yeah," Bodie agreed, not smugly, "but you're not the type to fall for a pretty face. Might have been why you wanted me the first time, but it's not why you wanted the rest."

"Ach, I don't know," Cowley said, but it was prevarication, and he was honest enough to admit it. "All right, two reasons. I know you; I know I can trust you. And I don't know you, because you're the most consistently damned unexpected man I've ever met."

Bodie cocked an eyebrow. "That right, is it?" he said slowly. His thumb started moving against the shoulder-muscle again. "Yeah, well, I had a mixed upbringing." He half-shrugged again, eyes still on Cowley. "You already know most of it."

"Hardly," Cowley answered dryly. "You have one of the sparsest records in CI5, Bodie. I have practically no information on you before you joined the Merchant Navy at the age of what you claimed was fifteen, and very little for the eight years you spent in Africa."

"I didn't know that." Bodie grinned crookedly, but fell silent, his face abruptly sombre to grimness. "I've wondered a few times what would have happened if my mum hadn't died when I was nine," he said after a while. "Y'see, my dad caught me in bed with my best mate when I was fourteen. He was a Jehovah's Witness. Dunno if my mum was, or if she just went along to keep the peace. I thought she didn't believe the way he did, but we never really got a chance to talk about it. My father believed all right. He threw us both out of the house, and when we went round to Kev's home he was already on the phone telling Kev's parents what I'd done to their son. Kev was thirteen, and I was big for my age - expect it sounded quite possible I'd corrupted the innocent lad." Bodie grimaced. "For the record, I hadn't. We'd been jerking each off for years. So they took Kev in and they told me to go back to my dad, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. So I went back," Bodie's voice slowed, and he was speaking with difficulty now, "and my father took me in and prayed over me and explained that what I'd done was worse than murder. I couldn't see why - always was an argumentative sod - and he got a bit vocal and then a bit violent. Hit me with his belt a few times. Eventually he locked me up in my room, explained to me he'd rather have a murderer for a son than a pervert - Christ!" Bodie nearly choked on a snarled laugh, "when I got back from Africa I nearly looked the bastard up just to tell him that now he'd got both."

"I've met a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses," Cowley admitted with distaste. "So then you left home?"

"I climbed out the window and hitched a lift to London and joined the navy," Bodie said tersely. "No one found it difficult to believe I was fifteen. Haven't seen the bastard since."

Two boxes had originally been left blank on the personnel form Bodie had filled in; Religion: and Next of Kin: When Cowley had informed the newest recruit that some reply, even if `none', was required for the first, and some name legally required for the second, the ex-SAS sergeant had scowled and scrawled in `born-again atheist', and (with grudging permission) his new employer's name.

"Mark called himself an atheist," he said thoughtfully.

"Called himself?"

"He read John Donne, which I wouldn't expect an atheist to appreciate."

"Oh, an atheist could," Bodie said reasonably. "Why worry about what you don't believe in? In believe in God; who is a malign thug."

Every Presbyterian bone in Cowley's body prompted him to rap out a reprimand for blasphemy; he bit it back only on the knowledge that if he did, it would change what was happening. "You don't believe that."

"You ever read that book of Donne's you gave Mark?"

"Of course."

"Remember one of those holy sonnets, the one that begins `Batter my heart, three person'd god,'?" Bodie inquired.

Cowley nodded, frowning.

"Lovely sonnet. Celebrates god the rapist. Supper's burning." Bodie stood up abruptly, adding "Coming through to the kitchen, or want to eat in here?"

His leg had stopped complaining; Cowley set both feet carefully on the floor and stood up, cautiously. It hurt, but not unbearably; "The kitchen."

Bodie shook his head, planted one hand firmly on Cowley's chest, and pushed him gently back down. "Forget it. I'll enjoy my supper a lot better if you're not putting yourself through purgatory to get yours."

"Purgatory, Bodie?"

The other man turned round at the door and grinned, ironically amused. "Just a figure of speech. Thought you'd prefer it to masochism."

He came back with the food (the lasagne was slightly charred); settled Cowley's meal on a tray on the small table, and sat down on the floor, leaning against the couch, to eat his.

After a moment, about to eat a forkful of Bodie's scrambled egg, Cowley tapped his shoulder. "What was that you said about masochism, Bodie?"

The other man turned, and a sudden delighted grin flickered across his face as Cowley chewed, swallowed, and looked startled. "Told you I could cook eggs," he said smugly.

"You surprise me."

"Do my best," Bodie murmured. Turning his gaze back to his own plate, he added neutrally; "Meant it, though."

They finished the meal in silence. Cowley watched the set of Bodie's shoulders, leaning comfortably back against the couch, and the dark head tilted slightly to one side. Nothing at all like Mark. Mark's eyes had been washed-out blue, nearly colourless; hair so blond it looked almost grey; an angular face that Cowley could no longer remember clearly. He did remember that for all Mark's pale looks, he had never seemed faded, even asleep; only when he was dead had he looked ashy, washed-out, washed away. Mark had been twenty-three when he was killed; it was strange to think that he had been eight years younger than Bodie was now.

"You go to church on Sundays," Bodie said, setting the plates aside. "We've had to fetch you a couple of times."

"And if I do? What do you believe in, Bodie?"

"Me," Bodie said promptly. "I was born, and I'll die, and that's all anyone can be certain of - and if there is a God, he's a divine thug."

"Your father's God."

Bodie brooded on that in silence for a while. "The Witnesses cram their kids full of stuff from the Bible, Jehovah thundering on this and complaining on that and generally acting like a spoilt brat," he said eventually. "But if there is a God, and he's running this world, than either he's a malign thug or else he doesn't know what the hell he's doing."

It was hard to argue with that, knowing what Bodie had seen - what Cowley himself had seen. Mark had argued his atheism logically, which had been easier to counter.

"What do you believe in? Apart from church on Sundays?"

Cowley hesitated. "I don't suppose the prophet Micah was ever read much at Witness services," he said precisely, "but since you ask; `And what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'"

Bodie's head turned sharply, showing surprise for an instant, but then he grinned and said blandly "Can't imagine you walking humbly with anyone." But he had reached out for Cowley's hand and covered it with his, even as he looked away again.

For the first time, Cowley leant and kissed the back of Bodie's bent neck; he saw the edge of the taut mouth curl up. "Tired?"

"No," Cowley said dryly. "Let's go to bed."

It was three days later that Marty rang, when Doyle was on the late night watch with Bodie. He picked up the phone, being nearer. "I want Bodie," a voice he recognised said without preliminary.

Doyle passed the phone over, mouthing "Martell."

Bodie nodded, propping the receiver between his ear and his shoulder. "Hello, Marty, how's it going?"

After that for a long while he said nothing, beyond "Uh huh," and "Right," and once, sharply, "What?" Doyle reached at one point for the second phone, to be hastily gestured down by Bodie.

Towards the end of the conversation he said, exasperated, "Marty, I know you can take care of yourself. But CI5 can - " A pause, and then "OK, OK. I'll tell my boss. Keep in touch." He put the receiver down with a sharp click, and looked at Doyle. "Sorry. But if Marty thought someone else was listening in, he'd have clammed up."

"What did he tell you?"

Bodie sighed. "More than we knew. But nothing good."

"You did tape it, didn't you?" Doyle asked, seized by sudden doubt.

The look Bodie gave him was a masterpiece of much in little. "Yeah, `course."

"So let's hear it."

The tape was replayed again the next morning in Cowley's office. He listened intently, frowning; when Martell said "But there definitely is a napalm dump," and Bodie snapped "What?" he glanced across the desk at the other man, chilly blue eyes impassive.

The tape ran into silence and Cowley switched it off. After a moment, Bodie stirred and said "Well - at least we know there is a problem."

"Ach, I knew that from the start, Bodie," Cowley snapped. "This is all hearsay - rumour. Your friend's heard talk about what may possibly be a new group operating in Britain, that might be backed by an individual fortune - he doesn't even know if they're Irish, African, or Japanese! The only useful information is these two names; Roy Garth and Daniel Cross. Are they in Records?"

"Yes, sir," Doyle said promptly. "We looked them up last night. Cross is a small-time hard man, one conviction. Garth's never been inside, but he's been closely involved with a string of right-wing pressure groups."

"Connections?"

"They've both belonged to the National Front," Bodie answered; "but at different times, and they're not currently paid-up members."

"Neither of them likely to be running a show like this?"

Doyle shrugged. "Not likely, sir; both of them are followers, not leaders. Besides, Cross doesn't have the brains for it."

"We can't afford to let them know we're onto them," Cowley muttered, fingers tapping. "But we have to find out more before we can risk making a move at all." Coming to a decision, he nodded to the other two. "Put them both under discreet surveillance. Don't let either of them so much as suspect they're being watched. And we'd better give Martell protection - "

"Ah," Bodie interrupted, "that's not so simple. He doesn't want it."

"What he might want is irrelevant - " Cowley said sharply, and broke off.

"If Martell gets rattled, we won't get anything more out of him."

"If he's killed, we won't get anything either."

"Marty can take care of himself."

"That's what I'm worried about, 3.7," Cowley said glacially.

Nevertheless, no operative was assigned to Martell; and Doyle, with Bodie, spent another few days carefully keeping an eye on Garth and Cross, and following up all their visitors. A few were to be found in Records, but none seemed likely to be central to the group.

Grumbling, Cowley assigned more operatives to the names being turned up; it was dull and fruitless work, and Doyle had plenty of time to think, staring absently sometimes at Bodie's profile against the window of the car. He could conceive of Bodie going to bed with the devil himself, if he felt like it and the devil was willing; but George Cowley? It was inconceivable, except that he had thought it. It was implausible in the extreme, except that the idea refused ever to be completely set out of mind. It was . . . not impossible.

Just highly unlikely, and his own fault for letting the stupid idea ever enter his head. He meant never to mention it.

Late one afternoon, though, when Bodie was giving him a lift back to his flat, his partner asked abruptly "What's eating you, Ray?"

"What?"

"You've been on edge for a week, what's bothering you?"

The car drew up outside Doyle's flat and he opened the door, ready to get out. Well, might as well ask him. Try to get out of reach while he's laughing before he can hit me.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Cowley lately."

"So?"

Doyle slid his legs out of the car, ready to run. "Not having an affair, by any chance?"

"No."

Bodie was staring at his hands gripping the steering wheel. Not laughing; not thumping him. Doyle swung his legs back inside, closed the door, and leant his head back against the seat. There was silence for a couple of minutes, and then Doyle let out a long breath. "Oh, Christ. You are, aren't you."

"I don't want to talk about it," Bodie said, still looking at the wheel; hard and level, the words evenly spaced.

Doyle shook his head, almost helplessly. "You've got to - but not here. Come in for a drink."

"I don't want a drink," Bodie grated, "and I don't want to talk about it."

"You have to talk about it, sunshine - to me or Security."

"You wouldn't do that," Bodie snarled, turning to glare at him.

Doyle was silent, then "Don't make me have to." Another pause.

---

Part 4: "the ruined years"

There was a pause; and then Doyle got out of the car and Bodie followed him, into the block of flats and up the stairs, his mind turning on one constant point; his partner knew. After three months, his partner knew. The bastard. I wouldn't have threatened him with Security, no matter who he was sleeping with. He could see the tension and anger in Doyle, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He must not be provoked into hitting Doyle. Must not.

When Cowley knows - Bodie followed Doyle into his flat and kicked the door shut behind him. The moment it had closed, Doyle rounded on him. "Spill it, Bodie."

"What do you want to know? What details can't your perverted imagination supply?"

"You know me better than that," Doyle snarled, "I want to know what the fuck you're playing at." He was spitting fury; Bodie did not want to face him down. It would come to a fight, and it wasn't worth it. Doyle didn't know yet, but it was finished. The other man was advancing on him; rather than turn his back, Bodie sidestepped and went into the living room. He went over to the window, staring out into the street, not seeing it.

He heard Doyle come in after him. "Don't clam up on me, Bodie. I'm your partner."

Not any more. You were, but not any more. Bodie had a lot of practice in tearing up a life and starting again, but it was still, inevitably, shattering. The street outside was darkening; the sun was already behind the houses.

"I never expected you buck for promotion via the casting couch," Doyle jabbed at him, trying to provoke a reaction, Bodie noted distantly. He was under orders not to talk about it, but that didn't really matter now. The damage had been done. And he'd wanted to talk; in more than three months, he hadn't, not even to Cowley.

"It's not like that, Ray," he said at last, to his faint reflection in the glass. "Maybe at first I did need some sort of hold on him, needed to know he wouldn't pull the trigger. But it's much more than that. I don't have to remember the name I gave the night before, or what branch of the civil service I said I worked for, or think up a reason why it's just a one-night stand."

He sounded flat and tired, even in his own ears, and Doyle, when he next spoke, was gentler. "I can understand that. But if it has to be a man, and within CI5 then - " Bodie could almost hear him shrugging " - there have to be other alternatives."

Bodie swung round. "Are you offering your services as a substitute?" he jeered viciously. "Fuck off," he added, exactly as Doyle snapped "Fuck off - "

They shared a sudden grin, acknowledging identical patterns of thought, as so many times before, and Doyle said more lightly "There's a lot of things I'll do for my best mate, but that's not one of them." He hesitated, but then he asked "But why Cowley?"

"Because he knows who I am and what I am." Bodie looked Doyle straight in the eye. "And because I like him."

Doyle glanced away, slightly embarrassed. "That I don't understand. Don't suppose I would regardless of who it was." He shrugged, and moving back to the cupboard where he kept he bottles, added "Come on, sit down; have a drink."

Automatically, Bodie glanced at his watch. There was a little time left. He sat down, accepting the glass Doyle passed him and taking a perfunctory sip.

"Are you happy?"

"I was."

Doyle sat down. "So you'll finish it."

"No."

"You have to - use your head, Bodie! A scandal like this could wreck CI5, not to mention destroying Cowley."

Bodie's hand clenched tighter, around the glass. "Cowley's safe enough," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "He told me when it started that if anyone else found out, it would be over."

"So you will be finishing it?"

"Weren't you listening to me? If anybody found out, and that includes you, Doyle - it's already finished."

Doyle stared, frowning. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, I dunno. South America, probably. I'm not going back to Africa."

"What?"

"Is there something wrong with your hearing? It's over. I'm out of CI5."

"Why?"

"Because you know. Cowley said that if anyone else knew I'd be looking for a new job. So I'm out. Got it now?"

"I'm not just anyone else." Doyel shook his head. "I'm your partner. I wouldn't tell anyone."

There was a peculiarly nasty grin on Bodie's face for a moment. "What was that you said about talking to Security?"

"Ah, look, Bodie - " Doyle sighed. "I was angry and I wanted to get you to listen to me. And nobody would believe me anyway."

Bodie set the glass down on the table. "Am I meant to take that as some sort of insult?"

The other man shrugged. "I was thinking about it for more than a fortnight and I didn't believe it. I wouldn't have believed it except that you didn't hit me and you didn't laugh, when I asked you."

"Shit!" Bodie said explosively, and laughed. "Christ, Ray - "

"Yeah," Doyle said grinning. "OK, Bodie, I'll give you this; so long as no one else but me works out what's going on, there's no security risk. And I don't see how anyone else but me could work it out. And I'm not going to tell anyone."

The smile left Bodie's face; he looked grim again. "Makes no difference. I'll have to tell Cowley that you know."

"Why?" Doyle demanded. He got nothing but a wooden look from Bodie, and groaned. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I'll never mention it again, not even to you, if you'd sooner I didn't. So what difference does it make?" When Bodie remained stonyfaced and silent, Doyle exploded, "Christ, Bodie, anyone would think you wanted to leave!"

Bodie shrugged. "Sunshine," he said more gently, "I'm an expert at leaving. People. Things. Places. I've had enough practice. I wasn't expecting this to last forever."

"We've been partners three years, Bodie, doesn't that mean anything?"

"It means you can tell when I'm lying. And I'm not. Not to you, and not to Cowley."

"What - now?"

Bodie glanced at his watch. It was half-past seven. "He's picking me up at eight."

Doyle was sitting still as stone, now, a bewildered look half of anger and half of misery on his face. "And that's it?"

"Very probably," Bodie agreed. "You know Cowley; never goes back on his word."

"We're right in the middle of a job."

"So he may save firing me till we're finished. Either way, I'll see you tomorrow." Bodie stood up to go; he heard Doyle make an abortive move - to prevent him leaving, to snatch him back, but he closed his ears to it and went out the door and down the stairs and drove away.

Back in his own flat, he sat down in one of the chairs in the living room and leant his head back, closing his eyes. True, he hadn't expected it to last forever. He'd just hoped for longer, for a better reason to finish it than Raymond Doyle's being all too observant.

He should really tell Cowley the moment he arrived. Better for Cowley, better for him. And never again the night spent with the wiry, compact man with certainty and authority in all he did. Never. It disturbed him more than he had thought.

The buzzer went; ten past eight. Cowley. All the way down the stairs Bodie was preparing and discarding opening lines "Hello, sir. Permission to report, agent 4.5 knows about us." - "Doyle worked out what's been happening between us." - or even simply "Bye, George." He had never called Cowley George.

The car door was open; Bodie got in and automatically slammed it shut. Cowley drove off. Bodie came suddenly and finally to a decision. He'd tell Cowley tomorrow morning. It couldn't make any difference, and they'd have one last night.

"Going to be working tonight?"

Cowley shook his head wearily. "We're stalled. Completely bloody stalled."

Bodie shut up. Somewhere in Britain (probably but not absolutely certainly in the south of England) there was a dump of jellied petroleum. Somewhere, sometime, it was going to be used. People would go up like torches. And they had no way to find it, no way at all.

Glancing sideways, taking in for the last time the blue eyes and set face, Bodie saw a tense bitterness, as though Cowley were tasting failure in advance. Setting the loss aside, Bodie started to talk. He talked, with determination and without much response from Cowley, about current CI5 gossip about Julia Carter and Brian Macklin, about the rumour that CI5 were covering the next Royal Ascot because Princess Anne was so worried about her horses, about the weather, and finally, in desperation, plunged into the football results, before Cowley cracked a grin. "Shut up, Bodie."

"Yes, sir," Bodie murmured politely, glancing sideways with a grin of his own.

Cowley turned into this driveway and stopped. "Is that a fact, about Macklin and Carter?"

"I think so," Bodie said, firmly keeping a sober face. He didn't know if Cowley knew about Carter's sobriquet, More Deadly Than The Male.

"Brave man," Cowley muttered, and got out of the car. He did.

Bodie hesitated a moment before following the other man into the house, but only a moment; he was inside the familiar hall. This was the last time. Automatically, he shrugged off his own coat, took Cowley's, and hung them both up.

He could never remember what they had talked about that evening, though he remembered other details vividly and clearly. He thought he had been charming; he knew that he had been withdrawn. He caught Cowley's eyes on him, once or twice, questioning.

They had sat talking over supper, as often before, until five to ten, when, as usual, they had gone back through to the sitting room for the news. Bodie sat down on the couch, and Cowley switched the tv on and sat down next to him. Just as usual, Bodie's arm went round his shoulders. Just as usual, and never again. He was not aware what the news had been.

The credits were scrolling up the screen. "What's wrong with you?" Cowley asked abruptly.

Bodie came back to himself, and shook his head.

"Come on, man, what's wrong?"

He shook his head again. "Nothing that can't wait till morning."

Having admitted so much, he half-expected Cowley to dig further, to uncover it all, but the other man sat there, inside the curve of his arm, looking at him and frowning. Icy-blue his eyes were , and chilling, as they seemed to rake through him. He closed his eyes, and heard Cowley ask "Tired?"

"No." Bodie shook his head a third time, opening his eyes again and looking at the wiry, compact man he held. "Let's go to bed."

When Bodie walked out, leaving his drink all but untasted, for a moment Doyle almost leapt up to grab at him and drag him back, to talk him out of this. He stopped mid-motion, knowing it was pointless. Once Bodie had made his mind up, it was fixed.

After about half an hour of pacing around the flat uncomfortably, unable to settle to anything, he gave up. He might as well go back to HQ and do some overtime, and buy himself a carry-out on the way.

Blake and Eddings, the operatives on the switchboard for tonight, both evidently thought he'd gone crazy, but happily gave him the latest list of names to hunt through Records for. He was on his third cup of coffee when the internal phone signalled, and he picked it up.

"Doyle? We've got a caller on line three. Asking for Bodie. You want to talk to him?"

"Yeah, put him through."

It was Martell, and he wasn't pleased. "I said I wanted Bodie."

"He's not here at the moment," Doyle said with restraint, "but if you want to give me a message I'll see he gets it as soon as possible."

"Look," Martell said, teeth audibly gritting, "I've got no reason to trust anyone in your bloody organisation but Bodie. I have information; places, people, dates." He overrode Doyle's reaction, crisp and sharp; "Either I see him, alone, inside an hour, or I am getting out of here. He'll know where. Tell him it's foxhole time."

"OK," Doyle said desperately, "I'll get him."

"He's got one hour exactly," Martell snapped, and put the phone down.

Doyle glanced at his watch. It was twenty past eleven.

There was no answer from Bodie's flat, and Doyle cursed. The photographs he had seen of the burning animals were vivid in his mind's eye as he tried, without success, the R/T and the car radio. He tried the local "Bodie? No, love, we haven't seen him -" and dug out of his memory phone numbers of two of Bodie's longest-lastest girlfriends. Jennifer; "No, I wasn't expecting Bodie tonight. I haven't seen him for over a week." Claire; "Bodie? I don't think so . . . " but she called "Rachel? Bodie didn't call tonight, did he?"

Without waiting for Rachel t