Discovered In The Bleak Midwinter - 6th January (delayed post from 30th December)

[unbelievable2.livejournal.com]

With thanks to macklingirl who kindly suggested I could post my delayed fic today!

Title: The Spy Who Couldn't Quite Come In From The Cold
Type: Gen
Rating: General Audiences
Word Count: 3,057
Summary: Doyle's escaped to foreign climes. It's just that he's chosen the wrong one.
Author's Note: The prompt – 'The world is bitter cold tonight' - comes from the poem 'A Winter Night' by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

The Spy Who Couldn't Quite Come In From The Cold

Bloody typical.

When you came to Spain, you came for sun, sand and sangria, didn’t you? That's what all the adverts said. It didn't matter what it was like in Blighty, it would always be balmy on the Costa del Sol, even the middle of winter. I mean, why else would there be palm trees?

Doyle gazed out onto the rain-lashed marble of the swimming pool terrace, the pool itself a mass of white horses whipped up by the easterly gale that was thundering its way down the Mediterranean. The famous palm trees were throwing their branches up in surrender, and the Michael Fish-equivalent on the telly in the bar was wittering on about 'bizarro' weather for the time of year.

You don’t mean to say so, thought Doyle glumly, toying with his rather insipid lager.

He'd resigned before; loads of time, in fact. And each time, Bodie would talk him out of it, with a pint and a cheeky grin. Not this time, though. The badge and gun had thumped down on George Cowley's desk, never to be picked up again. One Operation Susie too many. One time too many of seeing Bodie bloody and bruised, and Doyle himself missing death by inches. One funeral too many, depleting their increasingly small team still further.

And what had Bodie said this time, with an inscrutable look? "I can't leave the Old Man, Ray" he'd said, as Doyle had pleaded with him to give up, too. "Not now, I can’t. You know his back's against the wall. Just give it a bit longer; we might see things a bit clearer, eh?"

But Doyle couldn't wait to watch Bodie carted into the mortuary one day. So the gun and the badge had fallen onto the desk, and he'd grabbed a bag from his flat and headed to Heathrow, jumping on the first flight to Torremolinos. Where he would exchange the frigid air of a December London, at the fag-end of the year, for the warmth and relaxation of wine and senoritas, and he'd forget all about CI5.

Except it was bloody freezing, wasn't it? He'd had to go out and buy two extra jumpers from the rain-soaked market, and a strange corduroy cap that balanced oddly on his curls but at least kept his head warm. And he sat alone and morose in the bar, whilst seemingly all the flirty female holiday-reps had gone down with flu and the only naughty senoritas were the grandmas who would wink encouragingly at him as they toddled off to Bingo.

And so it was that, on New Year's Eve, he found himself almost the only customer in the hotel bar while the grannies warbled 'Auld Lang Syne' in the restaurant. Looking out onto the storm-lashed seafront, its coloured lights thrashing around in the wind, he remembered a poem he'd heard once at school. Poetry appealed to Bodie more than to him, and although he'd never quoted them to his partner – he'd had a reputation to uphold, after all - the lines had stuck with him over the years, one in particular.

'The world is bitter cold tonight.'

Bitter cold it was, certainly. Not with the deep snow and ice of the poet's imagination, but with the freezing wet drear so reminiscent of the East Midlands of his youth. Amazing how Torremolinos could look just like Derby, if you ignored the sea.

It was perfect weather for his mood, but it didn’t stop him being bored out of his mind. Still angry and directionless, he'd taken to walking out along the seafront in the daytime to sit in the hostelry that styled itself a 'Real English Pub!', where he could get chips, reasonable beer, and they had the British papers, albeit a few days old. He was wallowing in ex-pat nostalgia, and he'd only been gone a week. He knew he should be ashamed of himself, but he just couldn't be arsed.

It was there, on New Year's Day, when the pub was even more deserted than usual - most of the habitual clientele still sleeping off the previous night - that he leafed through a 'Mirror' for a couple of days earlier and saw a paragraph tucked away on page 5.

'Security Services shake-up' ran the headline.

'Downing Street confirmed last night,' he read, "that a wide-ranging review of the UK's law enforcement and security networks is underway, and already some important steps have been taken to move Britain into a more modern world in its approach to national security. Several agencies will be disbanded or merged in order to create a flexible, fast-moving and up-to-date capability. The first casualty of the review was reported to be the often-criticised anti-crime and terrorism department, CI5.

'A spokesman for No 10 said: "Our security services have lived in their own bubble for far too long, and with far too independent a remit. The world is changing, so methodology and practice need to change, too. There's no place for dinosaurs."'

So it had happened; George had lost his battle. Not a real surprise, what with the decade a few years old, a newly-confident PM intent on making her mark, and an administration looking for scalps and easy-wins. Whitehall loved its purges and new brooms, always conflating change with improvement. He had news for them; whatever their brave new world looked like, there would always be a need for someone to deal with the bombs and the bullets and the blood, while they sat in their ivory towers, sipping tea.

Is that why Bodie had been so insistent on staying? Had he sussed this was just round the corner, or had Cowley dropped a hint? Bodie had always been his favourite after all. Is that why he'd held on, so that George had someone in his corner until the end?

He wondered idly whether, by chucking it all in mere days before the axe fell, he'd forfeited any redundancy money that might have been coming his way. Such was the blackness of his mood, even that loss barely registered. He sat at the bar for the rest of the day, thinking about his past and sipping his pints, until it was time for the evening news.

It being a little home-away-from-home, the pub had a telly that got both BBC and ITV. He watched morosely as news from London paraded across his retinas. There was a little piece near the end that corroborated the Mirror's report. More or less word-for-word, in fact, though here the 'spokesman' turned up as the interviewee, some MP Doyle didn't recognise who was an under-secretary at the Home Office, sneering elegantly as he quipped about dinosaurs. And there was a flash of a still photograph of George Cowley - quite grainy and a good few years old. It was like the world had already consigned them all to a footnote.

Was he really surprised to find Bodie sitting at the hotel bar when he got back? Their lives had been entwined for so long now, he had woken most mornings wondering why he hadn't heard from his partner, only to remember that he'd left Bodie with no clue as to his intentions or his destination. And yet, here was the man himself, a barely-touched lager and a glass of the hard stuff in front of him, his black corduroy trousers, polo-neck and leather jacket far more suited to the weather than Doyle's rain-splashed jeans and double layer of cheap jumpers.

"Carlos," said Bodie to the barman, "another scotch, por favor." The barman nodded amiably, and Doyle marvelled yet again at Bodie's ability to ingratiate himself with anyone and everyone, in any country you liked, if he put his mind to it.

"Sit down, Doyle, for God's sake. You look like a drowned rat," said the man, and pushed the new glass in Doyle's direction.

"Which is quite appropriate, really," continued Bodie, holding his own whisky glass up to the light, apparently to admire the colour, "given you were pretty speedy getting off the sinking ship." Doyle prickled immediately.

"You here to extradite me, then?" he snapped. Bodie snorted.

"Neither the jurisdiction nor the job anymore, mate. Thanks for leaving a forwarding address, by the way." Doyle sat down wearily on a bar stool and picked up the scotch.

"How did you find me?

"Last thing I did before we switched off the lights at HQ and went down the pub to get legless. Used official channels to track your passport." Bodie took a sip of scotch and replaced the glass on the counter, where he continued to play with it, moving it around in small circles. He still hadn't looked directly at Doyle.

"Why'd you leave, Ray?" he asked eventually. "We could have done with you, these past days. There's been a lot to sort out."

The tone of his voice made Doyle feel ashamed. Now CI5 had been thrown in the dustbin, stalking out as he had done, without whys or wherefores, just seemed melodramatic. Not that he was going to admit that.

"I'd had enough of it all. Too much waste. Poor Aston, and then that awful bloody firefight on Boxing Day. That was the sum of our lives, Bodie! And almost our deaths, that afternoon! Cowley was lucky we stayed on as long as we did. We were let down once too often, as far as I'm concerned."

Bodie swivelled on his bar-stool and looked at Doyle properly. His face was tired and drawn; not so much sad, as resigned.

"That wasn’t his doing, you know. Not deliberately. The whole thing has been a stitch-up, going back months, once HMG decided we were for the chop. Support withdrawn, funding reduced, intelligence withheld, deliberate meddling to discredit us…. you name it. He was fire-fighting at every step, but you can only do that for so long, which is why there were so many cock-ups. And losses." Bodie lifted his scotch suddenly and knocked it back.

"Another one, Carlos," he called, pointing at his empty glass, "and for my mate."

"Did you know?" asked Doyle. "That they were going to close us down? Did the Old Man tell you?" Bodie shook his head.

"Not in so many words. But I'd been watching things, seeing how the power was ebbing away from him. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you weren't saying much, those days after Jenner bought it, and then Aston. Then, when you were in Leeds on that counterfeiting thing – another bloody deliberate wild goose chase, by the way – he asked me to drive him to Queen Anne's Gate. I wasn't in the meeting, but you should have seen his face afterwards. He was down, and they were kicking him, Ray. After you got back, there wasn't time to tell you, what with all hell breaking loose at Christmas, and then you bloody flouncing off like a big girl."

"Where is he now?" asked Doyle, after a pause.

"Gone to the Highlands for a holiday, is the official word. Well, I expect he really is in the Highlands, but it’s retirement – he's been put out to grass, with a piddling pension, no doubt. Oh, talking of funds, he didn’t put your resignation through, so you were still on the books when we closed the doors – he knew what was coming, all right. So eventually there will be back-pay and a little goodbye pressie from the Home Office personnel department, I believe. Don’t get excited. It's not going to set you up for life, but it'll keep a wolf or two from the door for a while."

Eventually, when he could swallow again, Doyle sipped his drink, and spoke.

"I hear we're being replaced by blokes with computers." Bodie nodded.

"Yeah, that's the plan. No need to be roaming the streets with guns anymore. Criminals and terrorists don’t go outside nowadays, apparently." Bodie's tone was withering. "Oh, she's popular after the Falklands, and everyone loves this business free-for-all she's created, 'cos it’s 'get rich quick', innit? But it won't wash, you mark my words. Twenty years from now, we'll be saying 'Britain: just what the bloody hell went wrong?'."

They were silent for a while, and the only sounds in the bar were Carlos polishing glasses, and the rain hitting the windows.

"So," said Bodie, raising his glass again. "Why Torremolinos?"

"S'obvious, innit?" replied Doyle with a sniff. "Sun, sand and sangria." Bodie spluttered into his scotch.

"You always were crap at geography," he said eventually, with a fond grin. "You see, young Raymond, if you want to get sun and sand this time of the year, you need to be going a bit further than Torre-bloody-molinos. You need to be in a different hemisphere altogether!"

"Eh?"

"The Southern Hemisphere, you prat! Where it really is summer, right now! Luckily, I have just the thing for you." He reached into his jacket and extracted four envelopes, two of which he tossed onto the counter in front of Doyle.

"Airline tickets?" asked Doyle, eyeing the envelopes suspiciously.

"I always knew Cowley recruited you for your brains. Go on, then, have a look!" Doyle opened one up, and his eyes widened.

"Bloody hell! The price!"

"Well, yeah," grumbled Bodie. "That’s for having to get back to Frankfurt and fly out of there. Because Torremolinos isn't known for its direct flights to Sydney."

"But… Sydney? In Australia?"

"That's the one I was thinking of," nodded Bodie, regarding him patiently. "In case you’re wondering, the other one's for me. I thought we could do with a holiday. A real holiday. No call-outs or timetables, just as long a break as we want. The weather's brilliant and there's good beer, unlike…" -he looked pointedly at the abandoned glass of lager. "It'd give us a chance to properly relax for a change. Maybe explore a bit."

"But, mate!" Doyle was still shaking his head. "That's a lot of money. I can't pay you back right now…"

"S'all right," replied Bodie, expansively. "I liquidated some of my shareholdings, old boy. Seemed like the right time." Then he sobered. "Don't you want to go, then?"

"Oh,crikey, no, of course I want to go!" beamed Doyle. "It’s a great idea. The bloody sooner, the better."

"Well, we're flying tomorrow, if that's soon enough. Unless you have any commitments here to hold you up?" asked Bodie smoothly, confident of the answer.

"What do you think? Best of all, I'm already packed!"

"And clearly with the right clothes," Bodie chuckled. "You know, over there, the birds walk round all day in bikinis, and the blokes are all in shorts. So your sartorial efforts will fit right in. All we need is a couple of hats…"

"…with corks around the brim!" finished Doyle, and they both burst out laughing. Then Doyle frowned.

"But we're still out of work. A holiday will be nice for a while, but I don’t have a bloody clue what to do next, Bodie."

Bodie waved the other two envelopes, slim and pristine white.

"Once again, I am way ahead of you, old son. In here are letters on our behalf to the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police – copies for us, he'll have the originals already, I should think. Cowley's recommendations. The Old Man felt that there would be plenty of opportunity over there for the likes of us. We can check in with the bloke when we arrive and see how the land lies, but I have a feeling there will be an offer or two waiting." Doyle whistled.

"He did all this?"

"Oh, he's looked after all the lads and lasses, as well as he could. This wasn't his fault, Ray." Bodie drained his glass again, and gave Doyle an unreadable look.

"How does that sound, Ray? Fancy working over there with me, giving Tingha and Tucker a run for their money?" His voice was light, but Doyle could tell how much was riding on that studied calmness. He smiled at his friend.

"It sounds like a plan. It sounds… hang on, what about my flat? All my stuff? Everything I own is there, in a CI5 flat!" Bodie sat back on his bar-stool and slapped the palms of his hands flat on the counter, giving Doyle an incredulous look.

"You take the biscuit, Doyle, you really do!" he said, exasperation clear. "I pity any poor girl who asks you to elope! Here am I, offering you an escape to the sun, and you're worried about your ratty old sofa!"

"Mate, it’s just…"

"Yeah," sniffed Bodie, "well, maybe if you were that concerned about practicalities, you could have settled your bar-tab before you fled the country. That’s something else you owe me for, 'n all! As it happens, there's a mate just out of soldiering who's used his funds to buy out his father-in-law from a removals business in Dalston. He's going to clear both our flats and put everything in storage, until we know what we're doing. Very reasonable rates, and he's trustworthy," he added, eyeing Doyle briefly before he went back to fiddling with his scotch glass.

There was another heavy silence; all righteous indignation on Bodie's part, and some real contrition on Doyle's. At last, Doyle reached over and grasped his friend's forearm briefly, and they managed to both speak at once.

"I mean, if you're not interested, just…"

"I'm overwhelmed. Thank you. I mean it, mate…."

They looked at each other for a long moment, then Bodie grinned.

"Thank God that’s settled. Right, does anywhere around here do a good steak and chips? Because I'm bloody starving!"

~fin~

A/Ns:
• HMG: Her Majesty's Government
• Queen Anne's Gate – the location of the UK Home Office at this time

• "Britain: just what the bloody hell went wrong?" Borrowing here a line from a Fry and Laurie episode in 1986, which gets quoted often in our house!
I'd just like to say a big hi to historians of the future, who may be looking at this show as part of a higher-education course in the year 201 0 entitled, ''Britain: Just What the Bloody Hell Went Wrong?''
I thought the sentiment would appeal to Bodie.

• Tingha and Tucker – Many here might not be old enough to remember this pair of koala puppets from children's TV of the '50s and '60s!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tingha_and_Tucker