No Notes by Slantedlight
Sep. 1st, 2011 12:04 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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discoveredinaljI'm not really sure this is a good idea, and I am absolutely invoking Pago Pago time (it's four minutes to midnight on the 31st August there, as I type this), but I really wanted to post something for this challenge (even if I'm sure it's not at all what ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaycat92 or cornishcat had in mind for the theme!).
This... is really just a rambling few days in their lives, and it's not yet for archiving because... well, here it is...
No Notes
by Slantedlight
post Backtrack
Doyle whistled as he pottered and clattered around the flat, giving things a quick wipe here, moving them to the right place there, now and then frowning at a scrap of paper with a phone number or a half-scribbled, long-redundant note. It was Saturday, and at long last a Saturday off, a day to catch up with himself, with Ray Doyle rather than 4.5. He wondered where that man went, sometimes, in the rush and thump of life with CI5, of gunfire and threats and villains escaped, but here it was, Saturday, and he was starting to remember all over again.
Besides, this time they’d caught them at just the right moment, in just the right place, and not even diplomatic immunity would get the bastards off – not with their own people, anyway. A vast cache of high grade heroin off the streets, and maybe even Sammy Blaydon might rest more easily – Doyle certainly would. He grinned to himself, scrubbing at a coffee ring on the windowsill - Bodie, messy bugger - remembering Marge Harper’s face. She was no one’s fool, Margery, and she hadn’t put a foot wrong as the woman in charge of her own patch, but there’d been a sparkle in her eye all the same, when she’d presented them with Pulman and watched Bodie haul him away. Yeah, she was alright, was Margery, even if she was a bit… overenthusiastic about some things.
Such as him.
He deserved this day off.
Rain spattered against the windowpane suddenly, so that he looked up and out to the wild grey world. Pity the poor sods out there today, pounding the beat and chasing down leads, and obeying his master’s voice…
He put down his cloth, started excavating the pile of papers he’d accumulated over the last week. Phone bill, that holiday brochure he’d picked up in a fit of wishful thinking, someone wanting to sell him double glazing… and a small black notebook. Don’t remember that…
It was the kind of non-descript notebook that he might have owned himself, but when had he..? He flipped it open, found himself staring at scribbled lines of Bodie’s handwriting, a strangely legible dark blue scrawl. Bodie’s notebook… He’d bought it on Doyle’s behest, sixty faint ruled pages, small, discreet, but with a firm cardboard cover to make writing easier, after days of being ragged about forgetting that bird’s number, the one on the boat, and he’d even got it out once or twice, the first time ostentatiously, but after that… after that quietly, seriously even.
So why was it…?
No notes!
Oh yeah… Without thinking, he let the other papers slip from his fingers, half-sat on the narrow ledge of the windowsill, and stared at the lines of writing.
I’ve not made up my mind about you, sonny boy…
Bodie’d been put off good and proper, hadn’t he, by Margery Harper – no wonder the notebook was mouldering away here in Doyle’s flat, it’d probably never see the light of day again. Just when I’d nearly got him trained… There, that first page was notes about the Collinson murder, then the address of their new snitch in Fulham, then… Christ, Schumann, with a little gun drawn beside the name… Quite good actually, didn’t know Bodie could draw… technical, mind, not from the heart…
No, he’d kept that for Schumann…
Over the page – Truitt’s address, a couple of lines about Sammy, scribbled down from CRO by the looks of them… and then a heading Margery Harper, her address, and then nothing.
Pretty enough, yes…
He half-smiled. She had Bodie pegged, did Marge, to be fair to her. Though there wasn’t anyone he trusted more than Bodie, probably never would be – she’d given him short shrift there. Bodie’d been taken aback by it too - not used to being upstaged, or suspected of anything worse than too much charm, that was his trouble… And then he’d left his notebook behind, suddenly spurned... Bloody Margery Harper...
Women... Who needed ‘em?
On a thought, he flipped the notepad to a new page, turned back to rummage again amongst his pile of papers, and picked up a felt tip pen.
o0o
It was dark by the time Bodie had collected Michelle and they’d fought an unexpected delay in the late evening traffic to get to Antonio’s, so that Doyle was already there, perched cheerfully on one of the high stools gathered at a small round table, arm around a vaguely familiar leggy brunette sitting beside him.
“About time - we were beginning to think we’d have to drink your share of the champagne,” Doyle said. “Go on then,” he added, as Bodie turned to the bar, “If you insist - we’ll have another gin and tonic to keep you company.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow at the four empty glasses already sitting on the table, rolling his eyes when Doyle just stared back at him, his version of innocence personified, but he headed for the bar anyway. At least they were off that bloody road – besides, it was Saturday night, their table was booked and their girls were corkers, and Doyle had that twinkle in his eye that meant he was ready to enjoy the night.
Antonio himself was serving, and he recognised Bodie well enough by now that they exchanged greetings, how’re the kids, and you keeping out of trouble, and a quick reminder that the girl behind the bar was one of Antonio’s daughters and strictly off-limits, and then the drinks were being lined up in front of him, four elegant glasses of gin – two doubles so that he and Michelle could catch up – and four yellow-labelled bottles. He was waiting for his change when he felt hands on his back, Doyle actually come to help him carry. Bodie pulled a face – surprised to see you here – but Doyle just grinned back at him, took the two doubles from the bar in front of him, and vanished back to their table.
Bodie rolled his eyes again.
When he got back though, Doyle had given the first drinks to the girls, was waiting patiently for his own.
"You remember Marianne," Doyle said, sliding a hand onto her thigh and giving her a little squeeze, and suddenly Bodie did remember her, an old date of his, now apparently Doyle's.
“Moonlight in Paris, how could I forget?” They’d spilt a whole bloody bottle of it at her flat one desperate night, spattered it all the way across the room and over every piece of clothing he’d been wearing. Doyle had dined out on it for weeks, and even bought him a bottle of the stuff just as he thought it was all over, ostentatiously wrapped and tied with a bow, and left on his desk.
He found himself smiling even more broadly at Marianne, glanced towards Doyle in wry acknowledgement - round one to him - and finally met the icy glare that Michelle was giving him.
Damn… round two to Doyle as well…
Still, the night was young, and Doyle would be with him the whole time.
“Alright mate,” he said, “How’d you get on with the doc, then?” He flicked a look downwards, to the soft nap of Doyle’s moleskins, where it stretched slightly too tightly over his groin, fabric rising where Doyle’s cock lay, and not, Bodie noticed, particularly quietly. Randy little bugger… “He give you the all clear?”
Marianne looked slightly startled, and Doyle pulled a face, scrabbling for an innocent explanation. His round then, that one. He grinned, and held out an arm to Michelle, as Antonio himself appeared to take them to their table.
The night wore on, a good night, just what he needed after the week they’d had. He needled Doyle, Doyle needled him back, and by the end of it they were both mellow and cheerful, and he didn’t even mind when the girls decided to call it a night, and go home early - on their own.
They saw them into a taxi, of course, promised to call, and waved them off, found themselves alone in the night, looking at each other.
“Ah well,” Doyle began philosophically, and Bodie interrupted before he could get any further, could talk himself into going home with a good book or whatever it was he told himself he did when a girl wouldn’t come across. He slung an arm across Doyle’s shoulders, steered him to the curb.
“You see that corner over there? Around that corner is the best doner kebab you’ve ever tasted – and I’ve got just the beer at home to go with it…”
They got halfway across the road, paused to let a boxy red car with a dodgy exhaust rumble its way past.
“Must be doing nearly twenty,” Doyle said drily, “Danger to themselves…”
“How d’you double the value of a Skoda?” Bodie asked, pulling him the rest of the way over the road, taking advantage of Doyle’s compliance and faintly unsteady footing.
“I dunno – how’d you double the value of a Skoda?” Doyle was trying not to smile, he must have heard this one before.
“Put in a gallon of petrol… How many elephants can you fit in a mini?”
Women – who needed ‘em?
o0o
“You were hungover, four-five, you were both hungover, and if you’re trying to tell me that played no part in Bodie’s abduction…”
“No sir…” Doyle struggled to keep his temper, knowing it wouldn’t help, knowing he had to find something that would. “They were waiting for us - it was planned and it wouldn’t have mattered what state we were in, they…”
Cowley slapped the file he was holding onto the desk, the echoing retort cutting him off as abruptly as anything could. “Aye, but if you’d been in a decent state, the state I expect my agents to be in, you might have seen it coming and…”
“With all due respect sir, if CI5 had looked into Pulman’s legal firm straight away, instead of letting a new grass do the work for us, then we might have picked up on his relationship with Sinclair, and…”
“Ifs and buts….” Cowley began louder than ever, turning away from him towards the window, and then he paused, seemed to sink into himself slightly. When he turned back again his face was calmer, almost gentle. “Ifs and buts get us nowhere, lad. Go on,” he gestured to the filing cabinet in the corner, “Get us both a drink.”
And how he didn’t see the irony of that, Doyle thought mutinously, doing as he was told anyway. He poured two glasses, made his a small one. He didn’t want to see another drink as long as he lived, because Cowley was, as Cowley always was, at least partly right. They had been hungover when they finally woke just before noon, Bodie swearing never again as he headed home on foot, still squinting at the sun as he turned and caught Doyle watching him from the window, gave him a desultory wave.
If someone else was watching him - and there must have been someone else watching him - then neither of them had twigged.
“Sinclair must be a desperate man to have come into the open with this,” Cowley said, as Doyle passed him his drink, and he sounded almost comforting. “We’ll have something on him, the computers will come up with something.”
Doyle said nothing, wanting only to be out there, to be away searching out villains, fighting until something gave, until someone coughed, until…
Until they got Bodie back.
o0o
Cold - it was very cold.
Bodie breathed in, through the pounding in his head and the pain in his shoulders and the dull, torn stretch of ache in his neck, he breathed in and he breathed out, and then he breathed in again.
It was cold, his hands were bound behind his back and there was a gag across his mouth.
He was alive.
No sounds nearby - no voices, no movement - and there was the feel of an empty room around him.
He opened his eyes cautiously.
Darkness - he was blind, he’d been blinded… No, there… an slanted orange rectangle of light. It was night then, and he was still in town – or some approximation thereof… Christ, how long had he been out?
There was still no movement in the room around him, and the angle of that light suggested… He braced himself for pain, shifted and pushed himself up against the floor - concrete floor, yeah, he was in someone’s cellar alright - had to close his eyes again whilst he waited for the dizziness to subside, whilst he waited until he could take another steadying breath.
He remembered… What did he remember? Nothing… For a moment, a panicked moment, he really did remember nothing, nothing but the room around him, his world, his life a frightening blank, and then memory started to leach slowly back… The night out with Doyle, sleeping like the dead on Doyle’s sofa, because Doyle’s place had been nearest after all, and he had gin and vodka in… Then a bloke in a bowler hat, wittering on about…
Khammami.
The case, the whole case, flooded back in a rush. They couldn’t manage a single night off, could they…
But why bother to take him? What could he get them?
More importantly, how did he get out of here?
On another breath, he managed to stand, to turn and measure the height of the window from the floor - too high – to get an idea of the rest of the room – bare and small-walled. The only way out was up the stairs and through the door.
The door opened.
o0o
It was in a phone box by Embankment, handy for the Tube, handy for getting lost in the crowds, crowds of people who all saw nothing but their own tiny worlds. No one remembered seeing a man enter the phone box, leaving an envelope behind him - or rather they all remembered seeing men enter the phone box, dozens and dozens of nondescript men. The only one who’d stood out was the bloke with safety pins piercing every flap of loose skin on his face, and he was hardly likely to be an associate of Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman…
Doyle’s eyes were gritted from lack of sleep, his jaw locked and his voice gone, run out of words, run out of everything except a desperate hope. Cowley wouldn’t let him open the envelope, even though it was far too slim to be wired up, even though dozens of men and one old punk had been in and out of the phone box since the man they wanted. Instead he had to watch whilst Cowley produced a letter opener from his pocket, carefully slit the thin brown paper, and let the polaroid photograph tip into his hand. He stared at it for a moment, blank-faced, and then held it out for Doyle to take.
And, despite everything, he hesitated.
“It’s alright,” Cowley said, so that Doyle reached out, shamed, to take it.
Bodie’d been beaten - badly beaten, so that his face was a mass of bruises, and blood had run in rivulets across his cheek from a cut on his forehead. His shoulders were drawn back slightly - they’d have him tied up, of course they would - and there was a vague wince to his mouth, but his eyes were angry and determined, and very, very alive.
“He’s been giving them hell, then,” he said, passing the picture back to Cowley.
“Aye, though what they think they’ll achieve…”
CI5 didn’t deal with kidnappers, not even for one of their own.
“Pulman and Sinclair were in Khamami’s pocket,” Doyle said, going over the case again, backtracking… “Khamami was using the drug money to finance…”
“How did they meet in the first place?” Cowley interrupted, looking thoughtfully out over the river. “Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman didn’t specialise in diplomatic cases…”
“Could have met socially...”
“They could have - which gives us another possible connection to follow. Call Willers, let him know.”
Doyle nodded, rubbed his hands over his face. Two days. Two days wasn’t long for someone who’d been trained as they had, for someone like Bodie…
“And for gods sake get some sleep - and tidy yourself up a bit!”
He nodded again. Backtrack… They’d come across Khamami through Sammy Blaydon - maybe Margery was the person he should talk to, maybe… Only she’d never heard of Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman… Cowley had vanished into the crowds himself now, and for the life of him Doyle couldn’t remember where they’d left the car. He’d walk back to HQ, that’d wake him up a bit, give him some space and time to think…
o0o
Bodie watched vaguely as the rectangle of light appeared again - at first a pale wash on the smooth concrete floor, strengthening when the sun strengthened, waning when the clouds came in, and now turned peach once more as the streetlights turned on, as they began their battle against the night.
This was the third night.
It was important to keep count.
Three nights, five men upstairs, always too many guns, all pointed his way.
On the bright side, they’d only beaten him once, just before taking his picture, and then they’d thrown him back on the floor, left him alone again whilst they waited for whatever it was they waited for.
Of course they’d only given him water once as well, and no food at all.
No blankets, and he was still cold, and getting colder now, so that his body was starting to shake with it.
There was one cord left unfrayed on the rope that bound his hands together.
He’d managed to unpick the others, to play on the weakness of a single torn strand. Should never tie someone up with old rope… money for old rope… he was on the ropes now… what was that joke about being tied up? What d’you call… no… How’d you… No, couldn’t remember.
How can you tell there’s an elephant in your fridge?
It was the third night, and Doyle hadn’t come to get him yet, which meant that Doyle was on his way.
Or else that they’d got him too.
Footprints in the butter…
The final cord gave way, but he couldn’t make his arms work and they flopped uselessly apart, leaving him still lying, still shivering, and surprised at the sudden, furious prick of tears.
o0o
He’d fallen asleep despite the uppers Matthesson had given him, and he dreamed strange dreams, of a world without women and a world without Bodie, a world where nothing was right at all and he ran and ran trying to find the clue, the next clue in the next phone box, but there was nothing there, and finally not a phone box to be seen, the world empty and strange and…
He woke with a start, to find that he’d creased half the papers he’d been looking at by lying on them, head resting on his arms, and that his back was killing him.
Getting too old for this game, Doyle…
The Khamami file went back months, detoured via Libya and the PLO, returned to London and to the drugs for guns operation that Pulman had been in up to his neck, that Sinclair had also been profiting from, that had been keeping two Swiss bank accounts nicely topped up. They’d got that far, they’d found Sinclair’s family and they’d found his holiday cottage in the Cotswolds and even his links to the London underworld.
They hadn’t found Bodie.
Backtrack, Doyle, Backtrack… Cowley was off on some other case right now, HQ awash with agents and activity, all of it giving Doyle a wide berth.
At some point they’d tell him he had to give it up, that agent 3.7 was unlikely to be found alive, that four days was already too long and that with every further day it was less and less likely… They’d tell him again that if Khamami didn’t know - and he’d been given three hours alone with him in the basement, a diplomatic exercise in light of recent revelations they’d called it to Khamami’s embassy, and no other questions had been asked. It hadn’t been long enough – either Khamami didn’t know, or he wasn’t talking.
We’re a bargain basement, Doyle… Who’d said that?
Right - think. He stood up, stretching his back and trying to ignore the wobble in his legs.
…you can buy anything here…
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t lost a partner before, it happened in their line of business.
We’re a bargain basement…
He stopped, hearing Cowley’s voice again, seeing the building again, the maze of empty rooms and the basement full of crates.
Nothing in nor out for two and a half days…
He knew where Bodie was.
o0o
He managed to get to the top of the stairs, managed even to lift his arms high enough to reach the old, round doorknob, and of course to find it locked.
His head spun, and his vision faded in and out, and he was cold, very cold, though he’d manage to keep moving enough to stave off the worst of the shivers, to bring some life back to his limbs.
But they weren’t coming.
Doyle wasn’t coming.
He managed to pull his coat around himself again, leant back against the door. He’d just rest for a moment. Put his hands in his pockets to try and warm his fingers. He’d try to do something again in a minute, though god knew what…
Maybe he’d sleep for a while, not sure he could keep his eyes open anyway…
It didn’t matter.
There was something hard against his fingers - not a gun or a knife or anything useful, but he pulled it out of his pocket anyway, stared at it, puzzled.
A notebook, a reporter’s notebook. His notebook, the one he’d chucked away.
No pen though - not as if he could scribble a message and tie it to a stone and lob it out the window, was it?
The life and times of William Bodie… He flipped the cover open, let the first few pages turn with it. Something heavy on the next one, something stuck on…
He smiled, because Doyle always made him smile, and he remembered Doyle’s hands on his back at Antonio’s, remembered the feel of them rather than the way they’d moved to slip the notebook into his pocket.
How can you tell there are four elephants in your fridge?
He was glad the girls had gone home, glad he’d spent that last night with Doyle. Was true, that - he’d never needed anyone but Doyle.
With an effort he turned around and slid the opened notebook halfway under the door, so that the spiral was on his side, and the picture of Cowley was on the other side.
It was all he could do. His eyes closed.
Somewhere upstairs, the door of the house they’d had on surveillance flew open on a well-aimed kick.
o0o
Title: No Notes
Author: Slantedlight
Archiving: Not yet, please
Disclaimer: They were never mine...
Notes: I know, apparently I have a thing about them tied up and cold in basements...
jaycat92 or cornishcat had in mind for the theme!). This... is really just a rambling few days in their lives, and it's not yet for archiving because... well, here it is...
No Notes
by Slantedlight
post Backtrack
Doyle whistled as he pottered and clattered around the flat, giving things a quick wipe here, moving them to the right place there, now and then frowning at a scrap of paper with a phone number or a half-scribbled, long-redundant note. It was Saturday, and at long last a Saturday off, a day to catch up with himself, with Ray Doyle rather than 4.5. He wondered where that man went, sometimes, in the rush and thump of life with CI5, of gunfire and threats and villains escaped, but here it was, Saturday, and he was starting to remember all over again.
Besides, this time they’d caught them at just the right moment, in just the right place, and not even diplomatic immunity would get the bastards off – not with their own people, anyway. A vast cache of high grade heroin off the streets, and maybe even Sammy Blaydon might rest more easily – Doyle certainly would. He grinned to himself, scrubbing at a coffee ring on the windowsill - Bodie, messy bugger - remembering Marge Harper’s face. She was no one’s fool, Margery, and she hadn’t put a foot wrong as the woman in charge of her own patch, but there’d been a sparkle in her eye all the same, when she’d presented them with Pulman and watched Bodie haul him away. Yeah, she was alright, was Margery, even if she was a bit… overenthusiastic about some things.
Such as him.
He deserved this day off.
Rain spattered against the windowpane suddenly, so that he looked up and out to the wild grey world. Pity the poor sods out there today, pounding the beat and chasing down leads, and obeying his master’s voice…
He put down his cloth, started excavating the pile of papers he’d accumulated over the last week. Phone bill, that holiday brochure he’d picked up in a fit of wishful thinking, someone wanting to sell him double glazing… and a small black notebook. Don’t remember that…
It was the kind of non-descript notebook that he might have owned himself, but when had he..? He flipped it open, found himself staring at scribbled lines of Bodie’s handwriting, a strangely legible dark blue scrawl. Bodie’s notebook… He’d bought it on Doyle’s behest, sixty faint ruled pages, small, discreet, but with a firm cardboard cover to make writing easier, after days of being ragged about forgetting that bird’s number, the one on the boat, and he’d even got it out once or twice, the first time ostentatiously, but after that… after that quietly, seriously even.
So why was it…?
No notes!
Oh yeah… Without thinking, he let the other papers slip from his fingers, half-sat on the narrow ledge of the windowsill, and stared at the lines of writing.
I’ve not made up my mind about you, sonny boy…
Bodie’d been put off good and proper, hadn’t he, by Margery Harper – no wonder the notebook was mouldering away here in Doyle’s flat, it’d probably never see the light of day again. Just when I’d nearly got him trained… There, that first page was notes about the Collinson murder, then the address of their new snitch in Fulham, then… Christ, Schumann, with a little gun drawn beside the name… Quite good actually, didn’t know Bodie could draw… technical, mind, not from the heart…
No, he’d kept that for Schumann…
Over the page – Truitt’s address, a couple of lines about Sammy, scribbled down from CRO by the looks of them… and then a heading Margery Harper, her address, and then nothing.
Pretty enough, yes…
He half-smiled. She had Bodie pegged, did Marge, to be fair to her. Though there wasn’t anyone he trusted more than Bodie, probably never would be – she’d given him short shrift there. Bodie’d been taken aback by it too - not used to being upstaged, or suspected of anything worse than too much charm, that was his trouble… And then he’d left his notebook behind, suddenly spurned... Bloody Margery Harper...
Women... Who needed ‘em?
On a thought, he flipped the notepad to a new page, turned back to rummage again amongst his pile of papers, and picked up a felt tip pen.
It was dark by the time Bodie had collected Michelle and they’d fought an unexpected delay in the late evening traffic to get to Antonio’s, so that Doyle was already there, perched cheerfully on one of the high stools gathered at a small round table, arm around a vaguely familiar leggy brunette sitting beside him.
“About time - we were beginning to think we’d have to drink your share of the champagne,” Doyle said. “Go on then,” he added, as Bodie turned to the bar, “If you insist - we’ll have another gin and tonic to keep you company.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow at the four empty glasses already sitting on the table, rolling his eyes when Doyle just stared back at him, his version of innocence personified, but he headed for the bar anyway. At least they were off that bloody road – besides, it was Saturday night, their table was booked and their girls were corkers, and Doyle had that twinkle in his eye that meant he was ready to enjoy the night.
Antonio himself was serving, and he recognised Bodie well enough by now that they exchanged greetings, how’re the kids, and you keeping out of trouble, and a quick reminder that the girl behind the bar was one of Antonio’s daughters and strictly off-limits, and then the drinks were being lined up in front of him, four elegant glasses of gin – two doubles so that he and Michelle could catch up – and four yellow-labelled bottles. He was waiting for his change when he felt hands on his back, Doyle actually come to help him carry. Bodie pulled a face – surprised to see you here – but Doyle just grinned back at him, took the two doubles from the bar in front of him, and vanished back to their table.
Bodie rolled his eyes again.
When he got back though, Doyle had given the first drinks to the girls, was waiting patiently for his own.
"You remember Marianne," Doyle said, sliding a hand onto her thigh and giving her a little squeeze, and suddenly Bodie did remember her, an old date of his, now apparently Doyle's.
“Moonlight in Paris, how could I forget?” They’d spilt a whole bloody bottle of it at her flat one desperate night, spattered it all the way across the room and over every piece of clothing he’d been wearing. Doyle had dined out on it for weeks, and even bought him a bottle of the stuff just as he thought it was all over, ostentatiously wrapped and tied with a bow, and left on his desk.
He found himself smiling even more broadly at Marianne, glanced towards Doyle in wry acknowledgement - round one to him - and finally met the icy glare that Michelle was giving him.
Damn… round two to Doyle as well…
Still, the night was young, and Doyle would be with him the whole time.
“Alright mate,” he said, “How’d you get on with the doc, then?” He flicked a look downwards, to the soft nap of Doyle’s moleskins, where it stretched slightly too tightly over his groin, fabric rising where Doyle’s cock lay, and not, Bodie noticed, particularly quietly. Randy little bugger… “He give you the all clear?”
Marianne looked slightly startled, and Doyle pulled a face, scrabbling for an innocent explanation. His round then, that one. He grinned, and held out an arm to Michelle, as Antonio himself appeared to take them to their table.
The night wore on, a good night, just what he needed after the week they’d had. He needled Doyle, Doyle needled him back, and by the end of it they were both mellow and cheerful, and he didn’t even mind when the girls decided to call it a night, and go home early - on their own.
They saw them into a taxi, of course, promised to call, and waved them off, found themselves alone in the night, looking at each other.
“Ah well,” Doyle began philosophically, and Bodie interrupted before he could get any further, could talk himself into going home with a good book or whatever it was he told himself he did when a girl wouldn’t come across. He slung an arm across Doyle’s shoulders, steered him to the curb.
“You see that corner over there? Around that corner is the best doner kebab you’ve ever tasted – and I’ve got just the beer at home to go with it…”
They got halfway across the road, paused to let a boxy red car with a dodgy exhaust rumble its way past.
“Must be doing nearly twenty,” Doyle said drily, “Danger to themselves…”
“How d’you double the value of a Skoda?” Bodie asked, pulling him the rest of the way over the road, taking advantage of Doyle’s compliance and faintly unsteady footing.
“I dunno – how’d you double the value of a Skoda?” Doyle was trying not to smile, he must have heard this one before.
“Put in a gallon of petrol… How many elephants can you fit in a mini?”
Women – who needed ‘em?
“You were hungover, four-five, you were both hungover, and if you’re trying to tell me that played no part in Bodie’s abduction…”
“No sir…” Doyle struggled to keep his temper, knowing it wouldn’t help, knowing he had to find something that would. “They were waiting for us - it was planned and it wouldn’t have mattered what state we were in, they…”
Cowley slapped the file he was holding onto the desk, the echoing retort cutting him off as abruptly as anything could. “Aye, but if you’d been in a decent state, the state I expect my agents to be in, you might have seen it coming and…”
“With all due respect sir, if CI5 had looked into Pulman’s legal firm straight away, instead of letting a new grass do the work for us, then we might have picked up on his relationship with Sinclair, and…”
“Ifs and buts….” Cowley began louder than ever, turning away from him towards the window, and then he paused, seemed to sink into himself slightly. When he turned back again his face was calmer, almost gentle. “Ifs and buts get us nowhere, lad. Go on,” he gestured to the filing cabinet in the corner, “Get us both a drink.”
And how he didn’t see the irony of that, Doyle thought mutinously, doing as he was told anyway. He poured two glasses, made his a small one. He didn’t want to see another drink as long as he lived, because Cowley was, as Cowley always was, at least partly right. They had been hungover when they finally woke just before noon, Bodie swearing never again as he headed home on foot, still squinting at the sun as he turned and caught Doyle watching him from the window, gave him a desultory wave.
If someone else was watching him - and there must have been someone else watching him - then neither of them had twigged.
“Sinclair must be a desperate man to have come into the open with this,” Cowley said, as Doyle passed him his drink, and he sounded almost comforting. “We’ll have something on him, the computers will come up with something.”
Doyle said nothing, wanting only to be out there, to be away searching out villains, fighting until something gave, until someone coughed, until…
Until they got Bodie back.
Cold - it was very cold.
Bodie breathed in, through the pounding in his head and the pain in his shoulders and the dull, torn stretch of ache in his neck, he breathed in and he breathed out, and then he breathed in again.
It was cold, his hands were bound behind his back and there was a gag across his mouth.
He was alive.
No sounds nearby - no voices, no movement - and there was the feel of an empty room around him.
He opened his eyes cautiously.
Darkness - he was blind, he’d been blinded… No, there… an slanted orange rectangle of light. It was night then, and he was still in town – or some approximation thereof… Christ, how long had he been out?
There was still no movement in the room around him, and the angle of that light suggested… He braced himself for pain, shifted and pushed himself up against the floor - concrete floor, yeah, he was in someone’s cellar alright - had to close his eyes again whilst he waited for the dizziness to subside, whilst he waited until he could take another steadying breath.
He remembered… What did he remember? Nothing… For a moment, a panicked moment, he really did remember nothing, nothing but the room around him, his world, his life a frightening blank, and then memory started to leach slowly back… The night out with Doyle, sleeping like the dead on Doyle’s sofa, because Doyle’s place had been nearest after all, and he had gin and vodka in… Then a bloke in a bowler hat, wittering on about…
Khammami.
The case, the whole case, flooded back in a rush. They couldn’t manage a single night off, could they…
But why bother to take him? What could he get them?
More importantly, how did he get out of here?
On another breath, he managed to stand, to turn and measure the height of the window from the floor - too high – to get an idea of the rest of the room – bare and small-walled. The only way out was up the stairs and through the door.
The door opened.
It was in a phone box by Embankment, handy for the Tube, handy for getting lost in the crowds, crowds of people who all saw nothing but their own tiny worlds. No one remembered seeing a man enter the phone box, leaving an envelope behind him - or rather they all remembered seeing men enter the phone box, dozens and dozens of nondescript men. The only one who’d stood out was the bloke with safety pins piercing every flap of loose skin on his face, and he was hardly likely to be an associate of Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman…
Doyle’s eyes were gritted from lack of sleep, his jaw locked and his voice gone, run out of words, run out of everything except a desperate hope. Cowley wouldn’t let him open the envelope, even though it was far too slim to be wired up, even though dozens of men and one old punk had been in and out of the phone box since the man they wanted. Instead he had to watch whilst Cowley produced a letter opener from his pocket, carefully slit the thin brown paper, and let the polaroid photograph tip into his hand. He stared at it for a moment, blank-faced, and then held it out for Doyle to take.
And, despite everything, he hesitated.
“It’s alright,” Cowley said, so that Doyle reached out, shamed, to take it.
Bodie’d been beaten - badly beaten, so that his face was a mass of bruises, and blood had run in rivulets across his cheek from a cut on his forehead. His shoulders were drawn back slightly - they’d have him tied up, of course they would - and there was a vague wince to his mouth, but his eyes were angry and determined, and very, very alive.
“He’s been giving them hell, then,” he said, passing the picture back to Cowley.
“Aye, though what they think they’ll achieve…”
CI5 didn’t deal with kidnappers, not even for one of their own.
“Pulman and Sinclair were in Khamami’s pocket,” Doyle said, going over the case again, backtracking… “Khamami was using the drug money to finance…”
“How did they meet in the first place?” Cowley interrupted, looking thoughtfully out over the river. “Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman didn’t specialise in diplomatic cases…”
“Could have met socially...”
“They could have - which gives us another possible connection to follow. Call Willers, let him know.”
Doyle nodded, rubbed his hands over his face. Two days. Two days wasn’t long for someone who’d been trained as they had, for someone like Bodie…
“And for gods sake get some sleep - and tidy yourself up a bit!”
He nodded again. Backtrack… They’d come across Khamami through Sammy Blaydon - maybe Margery was the person he should talk to, maybe… Only she’d never heard of Pulman, Sinclair, Dorset and Pulman… Cowley had vanished into the crowds himself now, and for the life of him Doyle couldn’t remember where they’d left the car. He’d walk back to HQ, that’d wake him up a bit, give him some space and time to think…
Bodie watched vaguely as the rectangle of light appeared again - at first a pale wash on the smooth concrete floor, strengthening when the sun strengthened, waning when the clouds came in, and now turned peach once more as the streetlights turned on, as they began their battle against the night.
This was the third night.
It was important to keep count.
Three nights, five men upstairs, always too many guns, all pointed his way.
On the bright side, they’d only beaten him once, just before taking his picture, and then they’d thrown him back on the floor, left him alone again whilst they waited for whatever it was they waited for.
Of course they’d only given him water once as well, and no food at all.
No blankets, and he was still cold, and getting colder now, so that his body was starting to shake with it.
There was one cord left unfrayed on the rope that bound his hands together.
He’d managed to unpick the others, to play on the weakness of a single torn strand. Should never tie someone up with old rope… money for old rope… he was on the ropes now… what was that joke about being tied up? What d’you call… no… How’d you… No, couldn’t remember.
How can you tell there’s an elephant in your fridge?
It was the third night, and Doyle hadn’t come to get him yet, which meant that Doyle was on his way.
Or else that they’d got him too.
Footprints in the butter…
The final cord gave way, but he couldn’t make his arms work and they flopped uselessly apart, leaving him still lying, still shivering, and surprised at the sudden, furious prick of tears.
He’d fallen asleep despite the uppers Matthesson had given him, and he dreamed strange dreams, of a world without women and a world without Bodie, a world where nothing was right at all and he ran and ran trying to find the clue, the next clue in the next phone box, but there was nothing there, and finally not a phone box to be seen, the world empty and strange and…
He woke with a start, to find that he’d creased half the papers he’d been looking at by lying on them, head resting on his arms, and that his back was killing him.
Getting too old for this game, Doyle…
The Khamami file went back months, detoured via Libya and the PLO, returned to London and to the drugs for guns operation that Pulman had been in up to his neck, that Sinclair had also been profiting from, that had been keeping two Swiss bank accounts nicely topped up. They’d got that far, they’d found Sinclair’s family and they’d found his holiday cottage in the Cotswolds and even his links to the London underworld.
They hadn’t found Bodie.
Backtrack, Doyle, Backtrack… Cowley was off on some other case right now, HQ awash with agents and activity, all of it giving Doyle a wide berth.
At some point they’d tell him he had to give it up, that agent 3.7 was unlikely to be found alive, that four days was already too long and that with every further day it was less and less likely… They’d tell him again that if Khamami didn’t know - and he’d been given three hours alone with him in the basement, a diplomatic exercise in light of recent revelations they’d called it to Khamami’s embassy, and no other questions had been asked. It hadn’t been long enough – either Khamami didn’t know, or he wasn’t talking.
We’re a bargain basement, Doyle… Who’d said that?
Right - think. He stood up, stretching his back and trying to ignore the wobble in his legs.
…you can buy anything here…
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t lost a partner before, it happened in their line of business.
We’re a bargain basement…
He stopped, hearing Cowley’s voice again, seeing the building again, the maze of empty rooms and the basement full of crates.
Nothing in nor out for two and a half days…
He knew where Bodie was.
He managed to get to the top of the stairs, managed even to lift his arms high enough to reach the old, round doorknob, and of course to find it locked.
His head spun, and his vision faded in and out, and he was cold, very cold, though he’d manage to keep moving enough to stave off the worst of the shivers, to bring some life back to his limbs.
But they weren’t coming.
Doyle wasn’t coming.
He managed to pull his coat around himself again, leant back against the door. He’d just rest for a moment. Put his hands in his pockets to try and warm his fingers. He’d try to do something again in a minute, though god knew what…
Maybe he’d sleep for a while, not sure he could keep his eyes open anyway…
It didn’t matter.
There was something hard against his fingers - not a gun or a knife or anything useful, but he pulled it out of his pocket anyway, stared at it, puzzled.
A notebook, a reporter’s notebook. His notebook, the one he’d chucked away.
No pen though - not as if he could scribble a message and tie it to a stone and lob it out the window, was it?
The life and times of William Bodie… He flipped the cover open, let the first few pages turn with it. Something heavy on the next one, something stuck on…
He smiled, because Doyle always made him smile, and he remembered Doyle’s hands on his back at Antonio’s, remembered the feel of them rather than the way they’d moved to slip the notebook into his pocket.
How can you tell there are four elephants in your fridge?
He was glad the girls had gone home, glad he’d spent that last night with Doyle. Was true, that - he’d never needed anyone but Doyle.
With an effort he turned around and slid the opened notebook halfway under the door, so that the spiral was on his side, and the picture of Cowley was on the other side.
It was all he could do. His eyes closed.
Somewhere upstairs, the door of the house they’d had on surveillance flew open on a well-aimed kick.
Title: No Notes
Author: Slantedlight
Archiving: Not yet, please
Disclaimer: They were never mine...
Notes: I know, apparently I have a thing about them tied up and cold in basements...
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Date: 2011-09-01 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 02:43 pm (UTC)That was great fun... I love the theme of the notebook, and the running jokes, and the scoring off one another with the girlfriends. And you can tie them up in cold basements as often as you like, thank you!
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Date: 2011-09-02 07:49 am (UTC)And thank you!
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Date: 2011-09-01 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:50 am (UTC)Heee - and also, thank you! *g*
I must admit, the whole dark thing and the cold thing, and the tied-up thing... yeah... *g*
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Date: 2011-09-01 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 01:59 am (UTC)Loved the sly digs, playing off each other and pretty much how they said nothing important in the notebook, but read everything that wasn't said.
Very sly of Doyle to slip that notebook back into Bodie's pocket, and very good that Bodie found it when he needed it.
Doyle to the rescue! Yay!
Lovely story and you can tie them up in cold basements any time you want (as long as they eventually get rescued!).
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Date: 2011-09-02 07:54 am (UTC)And thank you! *g*
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Date: 2011-09-02 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-09-15 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 10:30 am (UTC)Yes, I enjoyed the whole thing and it gave me something to read in my boring hotel room waiting for my boring meeting - thank you!
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Date: 2011-09-15 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 01:41 pm (UTC)Cleverly done. Oh, and I love the last line :)
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Date: 2011-09-15 03:09 pm (UTC)