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discoveredinalj2009-10-31 09:45 pm
magenta-blue.livejournal.com) wrote in discoveredinalj2009-10-31 09:45 pm
Entry tags:
Re-Discovered on All Hallows Eve: This is Halloween - Part Two
And on to part two...
Bodie stared at the facade of the building opposite. Half in shadow, it took his gaze a few seconds to focus on the closed door and the boarded windows. He memorised everything about the entrance, the exact positions of the boards, the brick on the front step, the way the bushes nearby moved with the breeze. Only when he was satisfied that he would immediately know if the scene changed, did he let his gaze widen, now taking in the road, now adding the first storey windows. And with each visual snapshot he returned to examining the doorway, mentally checking it against his stored image of the closed building. It was a long and slow process, repeated until all he could see when he blinked was the same scene, all but burnt on his retinas.
There was a monotony to the systematic checking that Bodie found strangely soothing – it was like cleaning his gun. No room for thoughts, for affairs of the heart, for day to day niggles of living. Just sweep and check, sweep and check, and no need to think about anything, no matter how cold…
Cold spots. Bodie pursed his lips although he didn’t stop his rhythmic sweeps through the telescopic lens. Could his flat have been compromised? Cold spots, a draught of some kind - perhaps caused by someone drilling a hole between the two flats, inserting a listening device? But the next door neighbour was on record, some geography teacher, unmarried, three cats. It seemed highly unlikely that she was an agent, although it was possible she'd been coerced into it. Coercion was always possible.
His gaze swept the same scene again and again: the entrance, the boards, the brick, the bushes. Sweep and check, sweep and check…
Could be mice, he thought suddenly. Mouse holes, pattering of tiny feet behind the skirting board – could all account for odd noises and draughts. But this was Ruth – she didn’t baulk at anything. She wouldn’t have gone to Cowley if she thought the flat was infested with mice, she would have gone to Housing and demanded they get the problem fixed asap.
Cowley didn’t say Ruth had reported it, so it was more than likely she had just mentioned it while driving the old man between Important Meeting One and Important Meeting Two. And Cowley was following his own procedure to check every possibility of a compromise… it was probably nothing, and he thought of Murphy, grey with lack of sleep, saying the same thing only a while ago, probably nothing…
How long ago?
Bodie continued sweeping and checking, but he afforded himself a quick glance down at his silent RT. When did Ray go to check the other floors? Half hour ago? An hour? He frowned, checked the front entrance, the boards, the brick, the bushes, and then looked at his wrist, remembering too late that he’d taken his watch off to climb over a brick wall this morning to check on a suspiciously empty property, and he’d left it in his pocket, the coat of which was currently at HQ.
He raised the RT, pressed the call button twice, and waited.
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
There was no answer from the RT. Bodie tried again, and imagined the beeps echoing on the empty ground floor, RT discarded in the dust.
“Fucking Murphy,” he said, trying a third time. Still nothing.
He stood there, sweeping and checking, while his back prickled with worry and sweat gathered on his neck and brow. Once he took a swift turn to check the room, but the emptiness mocked him. Facing front again he felt exposed, as if something which had oh so quickly hidden had emerged once again from the shadows with a cold smile.
How long had it been? Ten minutes, two hours?
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
It was driving him mad.
“Fuck this,” said Bodie out loud, turning away from the binoculars and snatching up his gun. No monsters behind him, but Bodie knew that already, and felt better now he had made a decision, was more in control. Reassured by the weight in his hand, he made his way to the doorway, and paused, checking both ways down the dark silent corridor. Then he softly padded first up and then down, checking each room in a text book procedure. Nothing, and no Ray. He must have gone downstairs.
Bodie didn’t hesitate, but started down the steps, keeping to the outside wall. The air smelled of mould, of neglect. He paused before rounding the corner of the stairs down to the fourth floor, and then continued, slowly, very aware of the gaping blackness in front of him. He paused again by the wall. Should he check this floor, or continue down?
Thoroughness chose for him, and he sidled around into the fourth floor corridor, which was darker than the one above. The doors were boarded shut along here, and the feeling that the darkness was alive came back to him, almost beckoning him along. He stopped and concentrated on his breathing. It was just dark, that’s all it was. He’d been in worse places…
He abruptly shook the thought from him and continued to the end of the corridor. Nothing but a forlorn bathroom with cracked urinals and broken mirrors. For a moment he saw his reflection in there, five of him, ten of him, and then he moved on. The whole of the floor seemed clean (although he laughed at that; it was filthy) and he started down towards the third floor.
A tiny sound below and he checked his movement. The footsteps below stopped just as suddenly. For a minute all was silent, and all Bodie could hear was his own breathing.
“Ray?”
He had the safety off his gun now, and if it wasn’t Ray he’d know, oh yes he’d know…
“Bodie?”
It was Doyle, it was Doyle’s voice, and Bodie swallowed, clicking the safety back on, feeling as though he had run a race. Footsteps below, quicker now, and an indistinct shadow came into view with all its owners grace.
“What the bloody hell are you doing down here? Trouble?” asked the shadow.
“I called you,” Bodie said, suddenly unable to share his terror from before. “You didn’t answer.”
“Yeah,” Doyle said, sounding annoyed. “Murphy forgot to tell us the ground floor is missing a floor. My RT's somewhere in the basement, I heard it fall. Nearly fell after it.”
Bodie was silent, seeing again what he thought he'd imagined before - beeps echoing on the empty ground floor, RT discarded in the dust. For a moment he pictured himself as a small child, telling his mother urgently that her lost bracelet had fallen down the back of the cupboard, and she had humoured him by searching, had been convinced he had put it there after she found it. He hadn’t, but it was a hard thing to explain as a four year old. It hadn’t really happened again, he tried to tell himself, that flash of insight, but he knew exactly where that RT was.
“You alright?”
Doyle’s hand was on his shoulder.
“Yeah, fine,” Bodie said, pushing the feeling away from him. “Felt like you’d been gone hours.”
“Half hour, maybe? I was trying to get the RT back, someone’s going to have to go down there and get it in the daylight – can’t leave it there, government issue and all that. Bloody Murphy…”
“You were longer than half hour,” said Bodie simply, re-holstering his gun. He started up the stairs, leaving Doyle frowning after him. He then jogged to catch him up.
“Look, if I’d have fallen you’d have been right to come after me, stake out or no stake out. Replacements can be expensive, remember,” he joked, quoting one of Cowley’s more memorable lines.
Bodie swung around to him. “I don’t want a replacement, Ray. Not ever.” He then went to walk away again, but Doyle held his arm.
“Well neither do I, you big lummox!"
They searched each other’s gaze and saw the truth. Bodie started to relax.
“Sweet talking me again, Ray?”
“I’ve been told I’ve got a way with words,” Doyle said, as they walked back into their room on the fifth floor. “My English teacher said I did.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, just after I told him to fuck off. You want one of these sandwiches yet?”
Doyle went over to the table and poked at the Tupperware, and Bodie went back to the binoculars. He stretched his back and his arms, and once again looked through the magnifying lens.
“I’ll try another lemon curd,” he said, checking the front entrance, the boards, the bushes.
He stopped.
The front entrance, the boards, the bushes. The picture had changed.
Doyle was walking over with the container held out when Bodie whirled around, checking for his RT. “What?”
“The brick! Someone’s opened that door - the brick’s gone!” Bodie said, quickly changing the frequency on the RT and pressing the call button.
He got through to Cowley on the second buzz.
“Sir, movement at the warehouse. Permission to check it out?”
Doyle waited, the sandwich box still in his hand, looking at Bodie’s eyes, his urgency. Ready for anything.
Bodie listened for a bit, grimaced, and then signed off. “We’re to wait for back up. Anson.”
“Where is he?”
“Fifteen minutes away. They could clear out in five! And we don’t know when they went in – shit!” Bodie went back over to the binoculars.
Doyle peered through the blind. The warehouse still looked deserted.
“Maybe we should check it out anyway. Can’t do a lot from back here.”
Bodie looked over at him. “We’ve only got one RT.”
“So we’ll stick together!” Doyle said, shrugging. He grinned over at Bodie. “Besides, Anson won’t be arriving up here, he’ll be down there. So we should be there to greet him, if nothing else.”
“Good point,” said Bodie, tucking the RT into his coat. “Let’s go!”
They ran through the musty corridor, and when the fire escape door opened they took twin breaths of cold air in pleasure. Bodie was first down the stairs this time, the iron steps shaking with their hurried footsteps, and once down they powered up the road until they reached the corner of the building. The warehouse crouched in the gloom across the street, weeds winning the battle against concrete.
“So,” said Doyle, leaning back against the wall, “should we go in and knock?”
“Front and back?” asked Bodie, checking his gun.
“One RT,” reminded Doyle.
Bodie looked over at him. “True. What’s the betting that warehouse has a side door like the fire escape on this warehouse?”
“I wouldn’t bet against you,” said Doyle. He gauged the distance from where they were to the safety of the other side. “Ready?”
“Ready,” replied Bodie, and they both dashed across the space, keeping as much to the shadows as they could. No gun fire followed them, and they huddled back into the darkness at the side of the other building. Doyle peered around towards the front entrance, but all remained silent. Except…
“There’s a car over there, was that there before?”
Ten yards from the entrance was a silent brown chunky Volvo.
Bodie gazed at it. “No.”
“I can’t see anyone in it, can you?”
“No.”
“Must be whoever’s inside. Come on!” said Doyle, pushing off from the wall and running down the side of the building, Bodie following him. They paused by a metal door.
“Must admit, it doesn’t seem like the car of choice for arms dealers,” Doyle said, bending down to look at the lock.
Bodie checked the road either direction but all was silent. He turned back to Doyle, who had pulled a thin piece of wire from his pocket, examined it for a second, and then turned his attention back to the lock.
Bodie was always impressed by Doyle’s burglary skills, his own tended more towards breaking windows than anything so discreet. “I’ve always meant to ask, did CI5 teach you that?”
Doyle grinned up at him. “Sort of. And sort of… not. I must tell you about my poor childhood one of these days.”
“Maybe when we are older, a lot older. I can tell you tales of Africa, you can tell me tales of the police.”
“Wait until we're both deaf, shall we?" Doyle suggested, listening intently. He straightened, and gave the door a small push. It opened without a murmur. He inclined his head to it, and Bodie nodded. They both drew their guns again and slipped inside, two silent shadows in the night.
Inside was a corridor in a similar condition to the building they had just left, - except that there were definite sounds coming from behind the door at the end of it. Hard to recognise, the sounds amplified and echoed down the corridor. Doyle and Bodie carefully crept up behind the door, and waited.
Looking at each other…
Waiting…
And then they heard girlish laughter, and they frowned at each other.
“They’ve brought a bird with them?”
“Maybe she’s the arms dealer?”
“A happy arms dealer?”
Their conversation had been entirely in whispers, and now Doyle straightened. “I think I know what this is,” he said, and he drew back, looked at Bodie, and then kicked the door open.
Six teenagers in various forms of fancy dress were sitting in a semi-circle around a bonfire. Shadows leapt and danced and the smell of hash was strong. A full two seconds after Doyle had burst in a girl screamed, reactions dulled by whatever she had been smoking.
“Police!” said Doyle, holding his CI5 card in the air. He looked towards Bodie, as he re-holstered his gun. “I’m sorry to break up the party, but you’re all under arrest.”
“It was her fault!” said one of the boys.
“They're going to take us away!” said one girl dramatically.
Another girl stood up, wavering slightly. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “You’ve both got guns. I didn’t think the police were allowed guns. Don’t go with them, Marcia.”
Bodie meanwhile was calling it in on the RT just as Anson drew up outside. Minutes later Anson and his team had rounded up the teenage pot-smokers, and sirens announced the police in the distance.
Doyle picked up a witch’s hat, and walked over to where the kids were standing sullenly in a line. “You shouldn’t waste your time with drugs, you know,” he said, handing it back to the girl that had spoken to him.
She accepted it, and looked down at her shoes. “It was only a bit of fun.”
“Yeah,” said Doyle. “That’s how everything starts.”
He walked back to Bodie and Anson as the police arrived. They watched them lead the teenagers away.
“That’s the end of their Halloween party,” Anson said. “Got a fright, didn’t they?” He smiled with his own wit, and tempered his grin when he saw the look on Doyle’s face.
“They’ll just get a caution, they didn’t have enough on them for a conviction,” said Doyle. He sighed. “So, the place is empty then?”
“Clean as a whistle, apparently. Snout got it wrong. We’ll get the police to check the whole area, but I doubt very much we’ll find an arms cache,” Anson said, looking around the warehouse. “Should be condemned.”
“You should see the one over the road!” Doyle said hotly, remembering his close encounter with the basement.
“Yeah poor Murph and McCabe, all that time they were staring at an empty warehouse,” said Bodie.
“Poor Murph nearly broke my neck not mentioning the lack of ground floor! Remind me to thank ‘poor Murph’ for that later!”
More police were showing up at the entrance now, and Anson was listening to his RT. He signalled to the police inspector, who began walking towards them, and then looked over to Bodie and Doyle.
“Well, it looks as though your work here is done. Apparently Cowley says he has a new project for you, starting tomorrow morning. At seven. In his office. Until then, you’re to enjoy what’s left of Halloween!”
“The old devil,” said Bodie.
Title: This is Halloween
Author: Magenta Blue
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Yes please, if you see this
Disclaimer: Purely for pleasure my son, purely for pleasure
Thanks: To BySlantedLight, for the quick once over and for correcting my mistakes!
Bodie stared at the facade of the building opposite. Half in shadow, it took his gaze a few seconds to focus on the closed door and the boarded windows. He memorised everything about the entrance, the exact positions of the boards, the brick on the front step, the way the bushes nearby moved with the breeze. Only when he was satisfied that he would immediately know if the scene changed, did he let his gaze widen, now taking in the road, now adding the first storey windows. And with each visual snapshot he returned to examining the doorway, mentally checking it against his stored image of the closed building. It was a long and slow process, repeated until all he could see when he blinked was the same scene, all but burnt on his retinas.
There was a monotony to the systematic checking that Bodie found strangely soothing – it was like cleaning his gun. No room for thoughts, for affairs of the heart, for day to day niggles of living. Just sweep and check, sweep and check, and no need to think about anything, no matter how cold…
Cold spots. Bodie pursed his lips although he didn’t stop his rhythmic sweeps through the telescopic lens. Could his flat have been compromised? Cold spots, a draught of some kind - perhaps caused by someone drilling a hole between the two flats, inserting a listening device? But the next door neighbour was on record, some geography teacher, unmarried, three cats. It seemed highly unlikely that she was an agent, although it was possible she'd been coerced into it. Coercion was always possible.
His gaze swept the same scene again and again: the entrance, the boards, the brick, the bushes. Sweep and check, sweep and check…
Could be mice, he thought suddenly. Mouse holes, pattering of tiny feet behind the skirting board – could all account for odd noises and draughts. But this was Ruth – she didn’t baulk at anything. She wouldn’t have gone to Cowley if she thought the flat was infested with mice, she would have gone to Housing and demanded they get the problem fixed asap.
Cowley didn’t say Ruth had reported it, so it was more than likely she had just mentioned it while driving the old man between Important Meeting One and Important Meeting Two. And Cowley was following his own procedure to check every possibility of a compromise… it was probably nothing, and he thought of Murphy, grey with lack of sleep, saying the same thing only a while ago, probably nothing…
How long ago?
Bodie continued sweeping and checking, but he afforded himself a quick glance down at his silent RT. When did Ray go to check the other floors? Half hour ago? An hour? He frowned, checked the front entrance, the boards, the brick, the bushes, and then looked at his wrist, remembering too late that he’d taken his watch off to climb over a brick wall this morning to check on a suspiciously empty property, and he’d left it in his pocket, the coat of which was currently at HQ.
He raised the RT, pressed the call button twice, and waited.
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
There was no answer from the RT. Bodie tried again, and imagined the beeps echoing on the empty ground floor, RT discarded in the dust.
“Fucking Murphy,” he said, trying a third time. Still nothing.
He stood there, sweeping and checking, while his back prickled with worry and sweat gathered on his neck and brow. Once he took a swift turn to check the room, but the emptiness mocked him. Facing front again he felt exposed, as if something which had oh so quickly hidden had emerged once again from the shadows with a cold smile.
How long had it been? Ten minutes, two hours?
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
Sweep and check. Sweep and check.
It was driving him mad.
“Fuck this,” said Bodie out loud, turning away from the binoculars and snatching up his gun. No monsters behind him, but Bodie knew that already, and felt better now he had made a decision, was more in control. Reassured by the weight in his hand, he made his way to the doorway, and paused, checking both ways down the dark silent corridor. Then he softly padded first up and then down, checking each room in a text book procedure. Nothing, and no Ray. He must have gone downstairs.
Bodie didn’t hesitate, but started down the steps, keeping to the outside wall. The air smelled of mould, of neglect. He paused before rounding the corner of the stairs down to the fourth floor, and then continued, slowly, very aware of the gaping blackness in front of him. He paused again by the wall. Should he check this floor, or continue down?
Thoroughness chose for him, and he sidled around into the fourth floor corridor, which was darker than the one above. The doors were boarded shut along here, and the feeling that the darkness was alive came back to him, almost beckoning him along. He stopped and concentrated on his breathing. It was just dark, that’s all it was. He’d been in worse places…
He abruptly shook the thought from him and continued to the end of the corridor. Nothing but a forlorn bathroom with cracked urinals and broken mirrors. For a moment he saw his reflection in there, five of him, ten of him, and then he moved on. The whole of the floor seemed clean (although he laughed at that; it was filthy) and he started down towards the third floor.
A tiny sound below and he checked his movement. The footsteps below stopped just as suddenly. For a minute all was silent, and all Bodie could hear was his own breathing.
“Ray?”
He had the safety off his gun now, and if it wasn’t Ray he’d know, oh yes he’d know…
“Bodie?”
It was Doyle, it was Doyle’s voice, and Bodie swallowed, clicking the safety back on, feeling as though he had run a race. Footsteps below, quicker now, and an indistinct shadow came into view with all its owners grace.
“What the bloody hell are you doing down here? Trouble?” asked the shadow.
“I called you,” Bodie said, suddenly unable to share his terror from before. “You didn’t answer.”
“Yeah,” Doyle said, sounding annoyed. “Murphy forgot to tell us the ground floor is missing a floor. My RT's somewhere in the basement, I heard it fall. Nearly fell after it.”
Bodie was silent, seeing again what he thought he'd imagined before - beeps echoing on the empty ground floor, RT discarded in the dust. For a moment he pictured himself as a small child, telling his mother urgently that her lost bracelet had fallen down the back of the cupboard, and she had humoured him by searching, had been convinced he had put it there after she found it. He hadn’t, but it was a hard thing to explain as a four year old. It hadn’t really happened again, he tried to tell himself, that flash of insight, but he knew exactly where that RT was.
“You alright?”
Doyle’s hand was on his shoulder.
“Yeah, fine,” Bodie said, pushing the feeling away from him. “Felt like you’d been gone hours.”
“Half hour, maybe? I was trying to get the RT back, someone’s going to have to go down there and get it in the daylight – can’t leave it there, government issue and all that. Bloody Murphy…”
“You were longer than half hour,” said Bodie simply, re-holstering his gun. He started up the stairs, leaving Doyle frowning after him. He then jogged to catch him up.
“Look, if I’d have fallen you’d have been right to come after me, stake out or no stake out. Replacements can be expensive, remember,” he joked, quoting one of Cowley’s more memorable lines.
Bodie swung around to him. “I don’t want a replacement, Ray. Not ever.” He then went to walk away again, but Doyle held his arm.
“Well neither do I, you big lummox!"
They searched each other’s gaze and saw the truth. Bodie started to relax.
“Sweet talking me again, Ray?”
“I’ve been told I’ve got a way with words,” Doyle said, as they walked back into their room on the fifth floor. “My English teacher said I did.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, just after I told him to fuck off. You want one of these sandwiches yet?”
Doyle went over to the table and poked at the Tupperware, and Bodie went back to the binoculars. He stretched his back and his arms, and once again looked through the magnifying lens.
“I’ll try another lemon curd,” he said, checking the front entrance, the boards, the bushes.
He stopped.
The front entrance, the boards, the bushes. The picture had changed.
Doyle was walking over with the container held out when Bodie whirled around, checking for his RT. “What?”
“The brick! Someone’s opened that door - the brick’s gone!” Bodie said, quickly changing the frequency on the RT and pressing the call button.
He got through to Cowley on the second buzz.
“Sir, movement at the warehouse. Permission to check it out?”
Doyle waited, the sandwich box still in his hand, looking at Bodie’s eyes, his urgency. Ready for anything.
Bodie listened for a bit, grimaced, and then signed off. “We’re to wait for back up. Anson.”
“Where is he?”
“Fifteen minutes away. They could clear out in five! And we don’t know when they went in – shit!” Bodie went back over to the binoculars.
Doyle peered through the blind. The warehouse still looked deserted.
“Maybe we should check it out anyway. Can’t do a lot from back here.”
Bodie looked over at him. “We’ve only got one RT.”
“So we’ll stick together!” Doyle said, shrugging. He grinned over at Bodie. “Besides, Anson won’t be arriving up here, he’ll be down there. So we should be there to greet him, if nothing else.”
“Good point,” said Bodie, tucking the RT into his coat. “Let’s go!”
They ran through the musty corridor, and when the fire escape door opened they took twin breaths of cold air in pleasure. Bodie was first down the stairs this time, the iron steps shaking with their hurried footsteps, and once down they powered up the road until they reached the corner of the building. The warehouse crouched in the gloom across the street, weeds winning the battle against concrete.
“So,” said Doyle, leaning back against the wall, “should we go in and knock?”
“Front and back?” asked Bodie, checking his gun.
“One RT,” reminded Doyle.
Bodie looked over at him. “True. What’s the betting that warehouse has a side door like the fire escape on this warehouse?”
“I wouldn’t bet against you,” said Doyle. He gauged the distance from where they were to the safety of the other side. “Ready?”
“Ready,” replied Bodie, and they both dashed across the space, keeping as much to the shadows as they could. No gun fire followed them, and they huddled back into the darkness at the side of the other building. Doyle peered around towards the front entrance, but all remained silent. Except…
“There’s a car over there, was that there before?”
Ten yards from the entrance was a silent brown chunky Volvo.
Bodie gazed at it. “No.”
“I can’t see anyone in it, can you?”
“No.”
“Must be whoever’s inside. Come on!” said Doyle, pushing off from the wall and running down the side of the building, Bodie following him. They paused by a metal door.
“Must admit, it doesn’t seem like the car of choice for arms dealers,” Doyle said, bending down to look at the lock.
Bodie checked the road either direction but all was silent. He turned back to Doyle, who had pulled a thin piece of wire from his pocket, examined it for a second, and then turned his attention back to the lock.
Bodie was always impressed by Doyle’s burglary skills, his own tended more towards breaking windows than anything so discreet. “I’ve always meant to ask, did CI5 teach you that?”
Doyle grinned up at him. “Sort of. And sort of… not. I must tell you about my poor childhood one of these days.”
“Maybe when we are older, a lot older. I can tell you tales of Africa, you can tell me tales of the police.”
“Wait until we're both deaf, shall we?" Doyle suggested, listening intently. He straightened, and gave the door a small push. It opened without a murmur. He inclined his head to it, and Bodie nodded. They both drew their guns again and slipped inside, two silent shadows in the night.
Inside was a corridor in a similar condition to the building they had just left, - except that there were definite sounds coming from behind the door at the end of it. Hard to recognise, the sounds amplified and echoed down the corridor. Doyle and Bodie carefully crept up behind the door, and waited.
Looking at each other…
Waiting…
And then they heard girlish laughter, and they frowned at each other.
“They’ve brought a bird with them?”
“Maybe she’s the arms dealer?”
“A happy arms dealer?”
Their conversation had been entirely in whispers, and now Doyle straightened. “I think I know what this is,” he said, and he drew back, looked at Bodie, and then kicked the door open.
Six teenagers in various forms of fancy dress were sitting in a semi-circle around a bonfire. Shadows leapt and danced and the smell of hash was strong. A full two seconds after Doyle had burst in a girl screamed, reactions dulled by whatever she had been smoking.
“Police!” said Doyle, holding his CI5 card in the air. He looked towards Bodie, as he re-holstered his gun. “I’m sorry to break up the party, but you’re all under arrest.”
“It was her fault!” said one of the boys.
“They're going to take us away!” said one girl dramatically.
Another girl stood up, wavering slightly. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “You’ve both got guns. I didn’t think the police were allowed guns. Don’t go with them, Marcia.”
Bodie meanwhile was calling it in on the RT just as Anson drew up outside. Minutes later Anson and his team had rounded up the teenage pot-smokers, and sirens announced the police in the distance.
Doyle picked up a witch’s hat, and walked over to where the kids were standing sullenly in a line. “You shouldn’t waste your time with drugs, you know,” he said, handing it back to the girl that had spoken to him.
She accepted it, and looked down at her shoes. “It was only a bit of fun.”
“Yeah,” said Doyle. “That’s how everything starts.”
He walked back to Bodie and Anson as the police arrived. They watched them lead the teenagers away.
“That’s the end of their Halloween party,” Anson said. “Got a fright, didn’t they?” He smiled with his own wit, and tempered his grin when he saw the look on Doyle’s face.
“They’ll just get a caution, they didn’t have enough on them for a conviction,” said Doyle. He sighed. “So, the place is empty then?”
“Clean as a whistle, apparently. Snout got it wrong. We’ll get the police to check the whole area, but I doubt very much we’ll find an arms cache,” Anson said, looking around the warehouse. “Should be condemned.”
“You should see the one over the road!” Doyle said hotly, remembering his close encounter with the basement.
“Yeah poor Murph and McCabe, all that time they were staring at an empty warehouse,” said Bodie.
“Poor Murph nearly broke my neck not mentioning the lack of ground floor! Remind me to thank ‘poor Murph’ for that later!”
More police were showing up at the entrance now, and Anson was listening to his RT. He signalled to the police inspector, who began walking towards them, and then looked over to Bodie and Doyle.
“Well, it looks as though your work here is done. Apparently Cowley says he has a new project for you, starting tomorrow morning. At seven. In his office. Until then, you’re to enjoy what’s left of Halloween!”
“The old devil,” said Bodie.
Title: This is Halloween
Author: Magenta Blue
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Yes please, if you see this
Disclaimer: Purely for pleasure my son, purely for pleasure
Thanks: To BySlantedLight, for the quick once over and for correcting my mistakes!
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and felt better now he had made a decision, was more in control.
Yeah, I totally believe that little insight into Bodie's character. And I love the way the lads were with each other here--together, settled, and yet it stil has the feeling of newness and the need for reassurance. Lovely stuff.
Thank you!
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As an aside, I love the fact that a beer notorious for being cheap/strong for tramps to drink is called 'Special Brew'. It sounds like something from a fairy tale - 'and drink this special brew my lad, said the shifty-eyed wizard, stifling a burp.'
Again, thanks for your comment, really appreciated!
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“Yeah,” said Doyle. “That’s how everything starts.”
ooh, strict, severe Doyle! That doesn't sound like the naughty Doyle who was making lots of noise in Bodie's flat six months ago, the old hypocrite.
And Bodie with second-sight, that's interesting.
Thanks for this seasonal fun.
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“I’ve been told I’ve got a way with words,” Doyle said, as they walked back into their room on the fifth floor. “My English teacher said I did.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, just after I told him to fuck off. You want one of these sandwiches yet?”
I can so see him as a very bad boy in school indeed... But secretly the teachers would all adore him at the same time as wanting to wring his neck... *g*
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LOL - I love your dialogue, and the ease between them. Such a nice creepy atmosphere too, though the scariest thing as far as I was concerned was the lemon curd sandwiches... ayeeeeee!
Thanks for such a great read.
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And I hear you with lemon curd. I used to love it as a kid - must've had no taste buds whatsoever, it's so sweet and sickly!