Work Text
Prologue
A faint distinct buzzing penetrated through Harry's unconsciousness.He wanted it to stop.His still-mostly-sleeping brain was vaguely aware of blankets, and legs tangled together, and pleasant aches, and a heavy weight slung across his hips, and the fact that it was still dark outside. He unglued one eye, just for long enough to confirm that it was still dark outside. He made a small, contented sound and relaxed back into the warmth radiating from his bedmate.The buzzing started up again.An ankle was kicked. A voice grunted, half into the mattress: "Phone."Harry blinked, hard, and woke the rest of the way up in a hurry, scrambling for the clothes that had been discarded on the floor, shivering as the duvet slipped off and icy air hit bare skin, reaching his phone just in time to stop it going back to voicemail."Yes?" he muttered.
"Harry Cunningham?"
He coughed, and said more clearly, "Yes."
"DC Mackenzie, Dr Cunningham. I'm with the Metropolitan Police. We've got a body in Sydenham Hill Wood."
Harry snatched up his watch and squinted at it. 3.27am. Said: "I'll be there in forty minutes."He scrubbed a hand over his face. He forced himself from bed with an effort, and, moving as swiftly and quietly as possible in only the faint light from the street lamps, he dressed: hiking socks, thick jeans, the first pullover to come to hand. He tried to recall the best route out towards Southwark; there wouldn't be much traffic out at this time of day, even in London.As he sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots, warm fingers closed around his wrist.He twisted himself around, met the steady gaze of blue eyes that had been tracking him on his trips across the bedroom. He felt the stupid grin on his own face mirrored in the mouth that came up to press against his, and he snorted a quiet laugh. He pulled back, and the eyes twinkled at him.Less than three minutes later, Harry was letting himself out into the dark cold morning and his mind was turning to the body waiting for him in the woods. * Harry stopped dead, staring at the scene laid out a few yards ahead, the horror enhanced rather than diminished by the dim lighting coming from the circle of police vehicles. "Oh, my God," he said, and immediately winced. "Sorry," he added.A grim nod from the improbably young detective constable."He was found like this?""A couple of students from Goldsmiths, both out late partying after their end-of-finals bash, both sobered up pretty fast. They've been taken to Lewisham Hospital.""All right," he said. "I think we're going to need a stepladder and some torches, don't you?"
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
By seven thirty, Harry was in front of his computer and squinting intently at a police database. His vending machine coffee had long since gone cold and sour. He had left the scene and driven in from Sydenham Hill as the sun was rising over the South Circular. He had ignored Charlie, arriving for her usual early start, and had seemed all but oblivious to the morning cleaner vacuuming around his feet.When a warm hand brushed between his shoulder blades and a takeaway cup of coffee appeared in the middle of his field of vision, he nearly startled right out of his skin."Hey. Easy.""Leo." Harry turned his head and made a visible effort to return his breathing to normal. "I'm sorry, I was miles away."Leo wiggled the coffee gently. "I thought you might -- ""Yes. God. Yes." The response was heartfelt as he grabbed at it.There was a heavy silence, broken, eventually, by Leo, who said, "Listen, I wondered -- " And then the quality of his voice changed, and he blurted: "Wait, what is that?""Ah." Harry, spirits somewhat restored by caffeine, picked up the two photographs that Leo's gaze had drifted to and put them in his hands. "That's rather what I'd like to know.""This is the scene you went out to?""John Doe in Sydenham Hill Wood. He was found like that by a couple of students at half past two this morning. No identification. Those are just some preliminary photos that I took myself, the police are saying that SOCO will be out there most of the morning."Leo was still staring at the photos, rifling through the small collection left lying by Harry's keyboard. "This looks ritualistic," he said."Yes," said Harry. "It does, and, for a change, not particularly difficult to identify. I didn't even need Nikki. It dates back two thousand years to the form of capital punishment that was dealt out by the Roman Empire to its criminals.""And you think that's how he died?" Leo asked."I'm not sure yet. There are few inconsistencies. I'm starting the PM in an hour," Harry added. "You can come along and help me find out, if you like." * "It is May 29th 2008. The time is 8.32am. This is an autopsy on John Doe, body discovered on May 29th 2008 in Sydenham Hill Wood. The autopsy is performed by Dr Harry Cunningham, assisted by Professor Leo Dalton and Dr Charlie Gibbs. Detective Inspector Ahmed and Detective Constable Mackenzie of the Metropolitan Police are also in attendance."The body is that of a white male in his early to mid-thirties, five feet eleven, well nourished. There are puncture wounds in both wrists and both ankles, with the entrance wound at the palmar surfaces of the wrists and the anterior side of the ankles. The wounds were made by four nails, which had attached the body to a tree in the style of a crucifixion. These wounds were almost certainly made post-mortem."There are no abrasions to the palms, or dirt or abrasions under the fingernails."There are marks around the full circumference of both wrists and across the dorsal surface of both ankles, suggestive of the victim having been tied up. The depth and thickness of the wounds are consistent with the material having been the rope that was tying the victim to a tree when he was found. The degree of lividity suggests that this occurred shortly pre-mortem."There are abrasions and evidence of vegetation and mud on the heels of both feet, but no abrasions or vegetation elsewhere on the plantar surfaces of the feet.""Is that important?" interrupted the young constable, through the intercom in the gallery."It could be," said Harry. "In determining place of death. Charlie, can I have scrapings taken here and here?"Leo moved to the feet of the body. "The victim was barefoot when he was found," he said. "Harry, can I..." Harry nodded distractedly. Leo raised one leg. "If a person walks over mud and grass barefoot, you'll usually find dirt here and here," he said, pointing to the heel and ball of one foot. "It's less usual but not impossible to only find dirt on the ball of the foot; occasionally, people do walk like that over rough ground. It would be very difficult for someone to walk only on their heels, though, and especially in a way that distributes dirt up the back of the heel like this." Leo pointed again. "It's a pattern that usually indicates that the body has been dragged across the surface rather than walking over it.""A wound has been made in the lateral left thorax, in the fifth intercostal space at the midclavicular line by a weapon which has been pushed in up to the hilt at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. The weapon remains in place.""Are you all right to take it out now, Dr Cunningham?" asked the DI.Leo raised his eyebrow at Harry. "There was a bit of a set-to at the scene," Harry murmured to him, too low for the microphones to pick up. "The police wanted it bagged immediately and taken away as evidence." He raised his voice: "Not just yet, Inspector Ahmed," he said, pleasantly enough."That knife's our best chance of fingerprints, Dr Cunningham. You've surely seen everything you need to see.""I know it's your best chance of fingerprints," he said, rather less pleasantly. "I do not know if it's a knife, and I have almost certainly not seen everything I need to see. To begin with, I'd rather like to see what damage it's done on the inside while I can still tell the difference between the damage your murderer did pushing it in and the worse damage I will almost certainly do pulling it out.""But -- ""Do you want me to explain to CPS that the reason I have been made mincemeat out of by a defence barrister is that the Metropolitan Police wouldn't allow me to complete my autopsy properly?" he snapped.A heavy sigh through the speakers. "Professor Dalton -- "Leo held up his gloved hands. "I'm here merely as an assistant, Inspector, but Dr Cunningham is quite right.""Charlie, I think the thing to do will be to remove the heart with the left rib cage and overlying skin and fascia all in one piece," said Harry, as if the exchange hadn't taken place. He traced lines in the air with his index finger. "If we could finish with the external examination of the back and the back of his head -- I couldn't see any head wounds when I went over him at the scene, but then it wasn't exactly daylight -- and then get dental imprints away, before I start messing around with the poor man's insides."The three of them worked quietly for the next twenty minutes, Harry only making an occasional remark for the benefit of the microphone hanging over the table and taking his dictation.Finally, half of their still nameless victim's torso sat in front of Harry and Leo, moved to one side of the table that contained the rest of his body, the angle made slightly awkward as they tried to work around the weapon still embedded in the mass of tissue and organ. Leo held the rib cage steady as Harry made a neat incision into the heart. He gestured for Charlie with the camera. "The weapon appears to be a thin dagger or paperknife with a blade about four inches in length." he said. "The blade is non-serrated. It's pierced the intercostal muscles at the fifth intercostal space, the left ventricle, and the interventricular septum into the right ventricle." He cut further and his head bent over. "There is fresh blood around the blade and a small amount of clot at the puncture site into the myocardium, suggesting that this wound was made pre-mortem.""What does that mean, Dr Cunningham?""It means, Inspector, that your victim was killed by being stabbed in the heart." * "That's uncommon, isn't it?" asked the officer who had introduced himself as James Mackenzie, ninety minutes later. "A stab to the heart? In real life, not in vampire films and such?" He blushed. Harry, who had had a moment that morning when he'd wondered why a teenager had been sent to escort him to his crime scene, felt impossibly ancient."It's not a particularly efficient way to kill someone, usually," acknowledged Harry. "An approach straight through the front of the chest, there's the pectoral muscle to get in the way and make it more likely you'll misjudge and hit a rib, if you don't end up missing the heart altogether. The heart lies at an angle," he explained, using his fist to demonstrate. "It's far more likely you'll hit the lung -- still not brilliant, still reasonably likely to be fatal unless medical help arrives promptly, but probably not going to kill instantly." "You said it isn't 'usually' efficient," said DI Ahmed.Harry called up a standard anatomical diagram onto his screen. "The point in the body where the heart lies closest to the surface is here, between the fifth and sixth ribs just below the armpit.""And that's where the paperknife was?""Indeed. A stab wound there, by someone who knows the right place and the right angle, nothing more efficient in the world. As you saw, it didn't even take an especially big knife.""You think we're looking for a doctor, then?"Harry made a face. "For someone with an intermediate applied knowledge of human anatomy," he said. "That covers more people than you'd think; medics, technicians, people who listened in A-level Biology, people who read Grey's Anatomy for fun." * "You should get some sleep," Leo said, footsteps and voice ringing in the silence as he entered the changing room."I've every intention," said Harry. He was putting himself to rights, dressed in street clothes again; jeans, T-shirt under thick jumper, the same hiking boots he'd pulled on to go out to Southwark early that morning. He balled up his scrubs in his left hand and tossed them into the laundry trolley. "The police have identified him, did you hear?""Charlie said.""Michael Patterson. He was an associate researcher in Cognitive Neuroscience at Goldsmiths'. He didn't turn up at work this morning. His colleagues called it in when they hadn't raised him on the phone by this afternoon. His father is coming down from Leeds to make formal identification tomorrow morning.""Do you need a ride home?" Leo asked softly."I'll be fine." Harry studied his fingernails, and then the floor, and then looked up at Leo. "So, this morning -- ""It's okay," said Leo. "We don't have to do this now." Harry's face shut down, and Leo nearly tripped over himself to correct him. "I don't mean -- I'm not giving you the brush off, love -- " The endearment fell out of his mouth. Harry gaped. Leo made an inarticulate sound. "I didn't -- shit, Harry -- "Harry waved a hand. "It's okay. It's -- fine," he said, the words containing something of a question and something that sounded a little like wonder."I meant," said Leo, pulling himself together. "I can wait to have this conversation until sometime when you haven't been awake for twenty hours and aren't carrying a fortnight's luggage under your eyes and have a chance of remembering what we actually talk about." Harry snorted. "Yeah. Okay." "I'll see you in the morning, then.""Yeah."Leo turned to leave, and performed a half-aborted about-face before he got outside. Harry glanced up from his bootlaces, an enquiring look on his features. "Is it okay for me to -- " Leo made a gesture.Harry's face softened. "Yeah, it's -- Leo, of course it's okay."He straightened and closed the gap between them to where Leo had stopped, dithering in the doorway. The meeting of their mouths was brief -- too brief, they both thought, but didn't voice it."I'll see you in the morning," Leo said once more, more sure of himself this time, and vanished before he could change his mind again. * Nikki was at her desk when Harry arrived in the lab the next morning. "You're back," he said, pleased."Good morning," she said. And noted: "This is late, for you."He brandished a plastic bag at her. "Had to drop into Blackwells on my way in," he said. "How was the -- er -- The wedding? The grandmother's birthday? The, um, godchild's christening?" His face did something self-deprecating and beseeching. "Am I even close to warm with any of these?"She laughed. "The schoolfriend's hen party," she said. "It was -- oh, you know what these things are like, you go intending to have a marvelous time and instead you end up drinking too much wine while feeling desperately sad and single and being asked by people who used to know you and think they still do whether it's really true that you cut up dead people for a living."Harry smiled sympathetically."Drink, later?" she suggested.He hesitated."Or are you on a case?" she asked. "I don't know if you saw a paper yesterday," he said. "The thing in Sydenham Hill Wood. But, actually, it's not that, it's that I might already have plans tonight." Nikki nodded. "Some other time, then," she agreed. "What's your thing in Sydenham Hill Wood? And why have you been out at eight o'clock in the morning buying a Bible?" * Harry put a cup of tea into the ice cold hands of James Patterson. A quiet, unassuming man with a Yorkshire accent who had arrived looking ashen and when he had seen his son's body had broken down into silent sobs that shook his whole body. He clenched his fingers around the mug as if it were a lifeline."You have children, Dr Cunningham?""No.""A parent should never have to bury their child."Harry thought of Cassie and bit his lip. "I know. I am -- very sorry for your loss, Mr Patterson.""His mum died when he were six," he went on, as if Harry hadn't spoken. "Cancer. So for all these years it's just been t'two of us. Got his place at Cambridge when he was eighteen and went off to do his degree, I were that proud of him." He looked up, suddenly fierce. "You'll find out who did this to my boy, Dr Cunningham.""Yes, sir, I will." Harry turned his own tea around in his hands. "What did you know of your son's life here in London?" he asked, carefully."Why? What have you found out?""Well, not an awful lot, so far, which is why I ask," he confessed. "I understand that he'd only lived with his flatmate for a few months, and he claims to not have known an awful lot about him. He says he was quiet, private, worked a lot. His colleagues at the university say much the same thing. He was a lovely man, liked by his colleagues and his students, but kept himself to himself.""Didn't like airing his private business for everyone, that were Michael.""But he must have had someone," said Harry. "Did you know of anyone? Any girlfriends, boyfriends? Anyone he would have confided in? Anyone he particularly disliked?""He weren't much for bringing people home," said Mr Patterson. "He liked his work. He liked his students, didn't tell me he were having trouble with anyone." He brightened a little. "His friends -- close friends, like -- were mostly from down at t'cathedral.""The cathedral?""Aye. He went to Southwark Cathedral, every week he could. He liked it there.""I see," said Harry."But why do all this matter?" he asked. "The police said he were found in t'early hours of t'morning. I thought it were a mugger or something.""No." Harry's voice was gentle. "No, sir, I don't think your son was killed by a mugger." * Between one thing and another they had spent the whole day passing each other in the halls, and it was well into the evening when Harry tapped on Leo's open door. Leo looked up from paperwork, looking pleased rather than irritated by the disturbance."I come bearing Thai food," said Harry, holding a paper sack up. "And Coke."Leo grinned. "Is this a date?""We started to have a conversation, last night," said Harry, but took the question as an invitation to kick the door closed, take possession of Leo's visitors' chair, and start unpacking boxes onto the coffee table. "I'd planned to ask you to finish having it over a drink.""But you thought that takeout food in the office would have more of the air of romance," said Leo."That, and my tox results are back and DI Ahmed is coming over to go through them at nine, so I'm a bit tied to the building."Leo rounded his desk and sat down on the sofa, opening a container of Thai green curry and picking through the mess of cutlery that Harry had dropped onto the table. He accepted the can of Diet Coke that Harry handed over, their fingers brushing briefly."I had to take Michael Patterson's father to identify the body, today," said Harry. "He's heartbroken. Of course. A lovely, ordinary man, his whole world swept out from underneath him, can't imagine why anyone would want to do anything to his son.""It doesn't get any easier," said Leo."He made me promise that I'd find out who did it.""You will. You always do."There was a long, comfortable silence, and then Harry said: "I'm sorry if I've been a bit -- odd, the last day or two.""You've been fine," Leo said softly. "If you're having second thoughts -- or if there were never first thoughts, if I've read too much into -- it happens, this sort of thing, you know.""It doesn't happen to me.""Colleagues. Friends. It's a bad day, and there's a little too much to drink, and someone lets their guard down a bit more than usual. I'd like this not to be awkward."Harry said, more plainly: "I didn't mean I don't know how to deal with it. I meant, that isn't what happened. I don't date, Leo. I don't get involved, I don't sleep with people I'm going to have to see at work the next morning." And added with the air of someone stating the obvious: "I also don't decide to ruin my relationship with my best friend for the sake of a shag."Leo choked on air. "Your -- What?""Oh, Leo." Harry's hand twitched, and he picked up his chopsticks. "Where did you think I was hiding all my other best friends?""Not just a shag, then.""Not for me. No. I knew exactly what I was doing when I asked you out the other night. I know you didn't, exactly, but then, I got the impression, last night, not just a shag for you, either.""No." The word was more breath than speech."Then?""I didn't know what you wanted," said Leo. "I didn't know what you were doing when you asked me out that night, I didn't think it was anything other than dinner. You were funny and brilliant and beautiful all night and it was only for me, and then when you kissed me -- " Leo trailed off. "I was willing to take you any way I could get you. I would have done years ago if I'd suspected for a minute that I'd be welcome. If one night was all that was on offer, then -- " He gave an eloquent shrug."I had no idea," said Harry slowly."In my defence," said Leo, "Nor did I."Harry speared a piece of beef with his chopstick and contemplated it, then put it back down. "Then," he said, swallowing hard. "For the record. As it were. The only regret I have about that night is that I had to run out in the middle of it.""We could try it again," Leo said, a smile breaking through."We did okay," said Harry. "But -- I'd like that.""I'd like to take you on a date where we both know it's a date," said Leo."I'd like that, too."They chewed, neither of them tasting their food, the air charged with something not wholly definable. "I'm not used to not fucking this sort of thing up," Harry murmured. "I don't want to fuck this one up, Leo.""I'm not used to this sort of thing at all," Leo countered. "I suspect you know how long it is since the last time I was interested in a second date. And -- that time, I married her."That sat for a moment."Yesterday," said Harry, in a rush. "The changing room. Love."Leo remembered. He remembered nearly choking on his own tongue as soon as the word was out. He thought about making light of it. But --"Well," he said. "I suppose, call it what it is, yeah?"Harry stared.Leo let him. A lifetime passed. His fingers twitched towards Harry's, and then pulled back. For something to do, he picked up his food and didn't eat any of it. Finally, he said: "Harry?""Put your curry down," said Harry."Where are we going?""We aren't going anywhere." Harry pushed his chair back and got up, rounding the coffee table.Leo looked blank.Harry tugged away the takeaway container and fork from his hands, setting them down."I was eating that!" Leo protested mildly.Harry ignored the flagrant lie. "I've still got a meeting before I go home," he said. "With a DI who already hates me. And she won't take me seriously if I go to a meeting wearing a shirt that you've spilled curry all down the front — ""I wasn't going to spill — ""And I'm going to kiss you now.""I — Oh." Harry raised an eyebrow. "Is that a yes or is it — "Leo reached for Harry's belt and tugged until he was in his lap. "Yes," he said.The word didn't make it all the way out before Harry took advantage of Leo's open mouth to lean in and claim it.Their first kiss had been two nights earlier, outside the restaurant that Harry had driven them to. It had been nervous, from Harry's side, and unexpected, from Leo's, and their noses had got in the way. The second had been while they were waiting for their coats, Leo trying to make it plain that although he hadn't quite seen Harry's intentions for the evening he had no objection to them at all. The third had been, by mutual consent, at the bottom of Harry's stairs. Their fourth, fifth, and sixth kisses had become a blur of heat and hunger and curses gasped into one another's mouths, and then they had rather lost count.And then that snatched kiss in the space between the shadows and the corridor lights the previous evening.This time, Harry's lips were warm and demanding against Leo's. He tasted of coconut milk and ginger and aspartame. When his tongue sought entrance into Leo's mouth, Leo spent less than five seconds thinking about unlocked doors before opening up and then returning with interest. Harry's tongue was slick, Harry's stubble rasped against his over-sensitised skin, with every nip to his bottom lip Harry's weight settled more heavily into Leo and when finally the movement pressed a hardening length into Leo's thigh, even through thick layers of cotton and wool and denim, he failed entirely to bite back a whine.Leo couldn't have said how much time had passed when finally they paused. Harry didn't trouble himself to move."Christ, look at you," he murmured.Something flipped in Leo's stomach. He leaned in, initiating it this time, gentler and softer and —He was pulled back to himself with a squeak of doorknob and a muffled yelp and then the sudden banging of door against doorframe.Harry nearly landed on the ground.Nikki was standing by the hastily slammed door, back turned. "Oh, God," she said. Leo had the impression that she was saying it through her fingers. And, very rapidly, still with her back to them: "Harry, the SIO on your Sydenham Hill Wood case is outside saying she has a meeting with you." * "Midazolam and LSD," said Harry, striding into the conference room and trying not to look as flustered as he felt. "DNA results are still pending, I'm afraid.""Good evening, Dr Cunningham." "DI Ahmed." He forced himself to slow down. "My apologies. It's been a bit of a day.""And for us," she said, drily. "Michael Patterson's father is beside himself, and I don't have any answers for him. You were saying something about LSD?""Yes, and Midazolam." Harry put his file down on the table. "That's a benzodiazepine, similar to Valium but unlike Valium not commonly found on the street. And LSD. Both administered intravenously, judging by the quantities in his system and the fact that we found no trace of either in his stomach contents. Both probably administered within two hours before death.""His flatmate was schizophrenic.""Not the sorts of drugs used to treat schizophrenia," Harry said. "Besides, there is no evidence that schizophrenics are any more likely to be violent than the rest of the population.""You didn't find any evidence of track marks, though?""Ah." Harry looked a little embarrassed. He sorted through the file and produced a photograph. "I went back over the body after the results came back, and there is what might be a small entry point on the inside of his left wrist."She studied the photograph and hummed. "Easily missed, I suppose. It's very close to the wound from the nail.""Indeed.""Could have been self-administered?" she suggested."Unlikely. He had a writers' callus and various other marks on his left hand that suggest it was his dominant hand -- that should be easily confirmed by his colleagues, even if they didn't pay much attention to him. The position, the angle -- " Harry picked up an empty syringe and sheathed needle, and bent his wrists to demonstrate. "This would have been very difficult for even a habitual intravenous drug user, even into their non-dominant hand. And you can confirm with his colleagues that he was left-handed, but there is no evidence at all to suggest that Michael Patterson was an habitual drug user.""It would take skill?""Some," he admitted."So -- what, you're saying now that he was killed with drugs, not with the knife?""Gosh, no. The stabbing was certainly the thing that killed him. The drugs might have done, given time, but if I had to guess I'd say that the point of them was to make him more cooperative. No, he was alive when that knife went into his body." * "Were those the plans you had?" Nikki demanded.Harry, who was closing the door behind DI Ahmed, nearly jumped out of his skin."Jesus Christ!" he swore. "For my next birthday, I am buying you a bell," he said firmly."Earlier, when I asked you to come out for a drink and you said that you might already have plans, were those your plans?""Oh, is that what you were asking me?" he asked, his tone sarcastic and just this side of flippant. "I'm sorry, I hadn't heard you over the sound of the -- " he waved his fingers in the direction of his skull, " -- of the stroke I was busy having.""Harry."He looked at her properly. "I'm sorry," he said, again, sincerely. "It was rude of us."Leo was what you were doing -- " Nikki coughed and rephrased. "Leo was your plans, tonight?""Well, not actually in the lab, that wasn't my plan," he said. "But -- yes, only work got in the way, so, delivery food over an autopsy file. It's almost surprising there weren't any Shakespearean sonnets about that. Where is Leo, anyway?""He was called out to a suicide," Nikki said absently. "You and Leo?" she asked.Harry's face softened. His eyes crinkled at the corners. The ends of his mouth turned up. His cheeks dimpled. The tips of his ears turned the faintest blush of pink. "Yeah," he said. * "Morning.""We need to talk," replied Nikki."We do?" asked Harry, looking doubtful."About this -- thing. With you and Leo."Harry looked very much like a man who was not nearly sufficiently caffeinated for this sort of conversation. "Right," he said, slowly, dropping into his desk chair. "You understand that I haven't actually seen him since the last conversation I had about this with you?"In the interests of not devolving entirely into mush, he very carefully didn't think about the message that had been on his phone the previous evening when he'd finally thought to look, confirming Nikki's information that Leo had been called out to the scene of a suicide, and more particularly he didn't think about the rapid-fire sequence of texts that had woken him from the edge of sleep, just gone midnight.
Sorry, that took longer than I thought. I'm hoping you're asleep. I'll see you at work tomorrow.
Less than a minute later: xAnd another minute after that: I appear to have turned into a teenage girl.Harry had just about managed to coordinate his fingers to tap out his own x and send it before he had tipped back over the edge into sleep, grin buried in his pillow.He returned his attention to Nikki. "Sorry," he said. "You wanted to talk." * "So, when you said lunch," said Leo, gazing up at the facade of Southwark Cathedral. "This isn't a place I'd normally associate with you.""According to his father, this was Michael Patterson's church," Harry said."Ah."Leo turned away from the church and sat down on the bench that Harry had chosen, looking out over the Thames. He put his hand in Harry's upturned palm, more relieved than he wanted to admit when Harry's fingers closed around his. His phone call hadn't sounded reassuring."I wanted to talk to you outside of the office for a number of reasons, but the most important one is that I need it to be clear that I'm not coming to you with this as our supervisor." Harry breathed. Leo waited it out. Harry said: "Nikki and I had -- words, you might call it -- this morning."Leo nodded slowly. Harry's point was well made; he was, of course, in charge, but pragmatically speaking — It had taken time, in the beginning, those first awful weeks, learning how to manage without Sam, but they had come through it. Harry had known Leo long before he was Professor Dalton. Their relationship had been forged over years of pints, and personal crises, and working for Samantha Ryan. And then when Theresa and Cassie had died, it was Harry who had saved his life, and put the scattered pieces of him back together, and then made sure there was a lab for him to come back to. Harry was as qualified and well respected as Leo, more, in some circles, and if he had wanted it, could have been running his own lab several times over by now.All of which was why, when Harry had invited him into bed three nights earlier, the fact that he was, technically, Harry's direct supervisor had not for a single second crossed Leo's mind.Well, that would clearly need to be dealt with.For now, though. "It's about — " Leo gestured with his free hand. " — us?"Harry barked a humourless laugh. "In a manner of speaking."There were any number of reasons for people to disapprove of this thing between him and Harry, he supposed. Leo was too old for him. Leo had had a wife. Everyone presumed that Leo was straight. Most people presumed that Harry was straight. Most people thought that Leo and Harry had nothing in common besides work. Just because Leo had all but forgotten that he was Harry's boss didn't mean that Nikki had. And even if she didn't disapprove, exactly, it had been inconsiderate of them both to let her walk in on what she had walked in on. And then there was —"Nikki is harbouring some kind of mad delusion that she's in love with me," Harry said to his knees.Leo snorted.And then there was that."I laughed, too, at first, but she claims to be perfectly serious."Leo turned around to meet Harry's eyes and was taken aback by the misery he found in them. The grin dropped from his mouth. "Wait, you didn't know?" he asked incredulously."You did?""Everyone knew!" exclaimed Leo. "The support staff. The SOCOs. The police. The two blokes who run that coffee shop you both like at the other end of campus. The secretarial staff has a pool running on the two of you. Christ Almighty, your mother asked me once if I thought it would do any good to bang your heads together."Harry looked faintly ill. "You never said anything.""Of course I didn't say anything."A silence fell. "Oh," said Harry quietly."Ought I to have done?" asked Leo, hesitantly. "I mean, if you had known -- "The answer was forceful. "No," he said. "Leo, get that idea out of your head immediately. I adore Nikki, and you know I do. She is brilliant and terrifying, and she is very much the irritating little sister I never had." He cleared his throat. "I don't want Nikki. The person I want is sitting next to me, trying to be a self-sacrificing idiot." * "How was the Vice Chancellor?""Oh. Hi." Leo lowered the file he had been thumbing through as he wandered towards his office, and stepped inside the main office. "Sorry, Nikki. I didn't see you there.""Clearly," she murmured. "It was the Vice Chancellor you were meeting with, this morning?"He shrugged one shoulder. "The usual guff. A loss making department, need to diversify, difficult to market, must do better, etcetera."Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "You haven't seen Harry today?""For a few minutes on my way back. He's in Southwark, something to do with the Patterson case. What are you up to?""Just comparing some soil samples." * "Lucy, this is Harry Cunningham. He says he has an appointment."Harry held out a hand. "Reverend Holland.""Lucy, please. Thanks, Andrew," she added, to the volunteer who had escorted Harry into the small office. "You're here about Michael. You're with the police?""I'm a pathologist with the Home Office."Lucy Holland gestured to a chair. "Please. I hadn't seen Michael for several months, but -- ""Really?""But anything I can do to help, of course.""You know how he died?""Not precisely. I know he was found down in the wood. The papers seemed to suggest that you didn't think it was a random attack.""No. It doesn't seem that way."Harry described, as tactfully as he could, the way the body had been found, the growing horror on the priest's face not lost on him. "I imagine the police will want to interview you too, but I'm really just trying to understand the significance of the way he was killed," he said. "If we could understand why, it might help a great deal in finding his killer.""You're familiar with the Gospels?" she asked."I've been trying to do a little reading," he admitted. "The crucifixion, obviously -- ""The nails.""It's the stabbing that I don't completely understand. It doesn't seem to fit into anything that I've been able to find.""Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once blood and water came out," she quoted. "The Gospel of John.""In the heart?" Harry asked."Not traditionally," she said. At Harry's bemused look, she went on: "I am not an anatomist, but artistic representations of the act usually suggest that the stabbing was in the abdomen. They are only interpretations, though. Dr Cunningham, the Gospels were written by men who had less modern understanding of anatomy than I do, and were translated from Aramaic to Greek and then from Greek to English and then to English again and again and again by men who didn't agree even with one another. I cannot say to you that Jesus was not pierced in the heart at Calgary, no one can. From my reading of the Gospel of John, I would say it is as valid an interpretation as any other."Harry nodded and filed the information away for later consideration. "I'd understood from his father that Michael was very attached to this church," he said."Yes," she agreed. "I believe he first came here three years ago, when he moved to London to take up his research post. That was a little before my time.""He was a neuroscientist?""Yes.""And that isn't -- forgive me, Reverend, but that seems unusual to me. That a man of science would be so attached to Christianity.""You don't have a faith, Dr Cunningham?""Not in the supernatural. No.""Well, it isn't so unusual as you might think. People can believe in science and in God at the same time. Michael was one of them.""You said you hadn't seen him for a few months.""He had become -- troubled. He had come to believe that the Cathedral was no longer a place where he could find God. Or -- what other people were telling him God was, at least. He spent some time struggling to reconcile what he was with what he was coming to believe.""And what was he?""Oh." A flash of surprise graced her features. "I presumed you knew. Michael was gay, Dr Cunningham." * Leo's head was bent over a microscope. "This one here looks to me as if fresh vegetation is mixed in with -- what is that, sand?""It's not that I mind your being gay," said Nikki abruptly.He nearly took his eye out with the eyepiece. "Bisexual," he said, blinking away pain. "I don't recall asking if you minded."But -- Harry. Leo, really?" "Yes. Really." "I'd always presumed that he and I would -- you know -- that in the end, it would be the two of us," she said, a little sadly. "That was how I thought it was supposed to go.""So did a lot of people. So did I," Leo admitted."So."He held a hand up: "If you want to have a go at him for being an oblivious idiot, then that is absolutely fair enough and I won't get in your way.""He'll want children, one day. He'll want to be married. He's young. You two don't have anything real in common outside of work, and what if you go on and do this and it ends badly?" she asked earnestly. "And you still have to work together. And your friendship. You're such good friends. Is it really worth ruining that for -- well, for sex?""It's not for sex, Nikki, for heaven's sake," he said, wondering where to begin with being insulted. Added, with a grin: "Well, it's not only for sex, anyway."
"Leo!"
"You asked.""Listen -- ""I don't propose to fight you for Harry," Leo snapped. "Harry is a grown man who is capable of making his own decisions, and one of those decisions appears to be that the thing that makes him happy is, well, me." He glanced at her raised eyebrow. "It surprised the hell out of me, too, but I'm not enough of a martyr to not grab that with both hands.""And what if it does end badly?" she asked again."Then we'll deal with it like adults." He set his slide down and took a breath, looking her in the eye for the first time. "Look, it's all very new and this is something I haven't said to Harry, yet, and probably I should, before I go saying it to other people, but -- it is something you need to understand. I don't want it to end at all." * "Yes, yes, I'm coming, yes, God, calm down — Leo." The door swung open to Harry on the other side of it, looking surprised but pleased.Leo drank in the sight of him in jeans, a flannel shirt worn thin from age, bare feet, and reading glasses, his hair sticking up every which way, and momentarily lost all the air in his lungs.It took a minute for him to come back to himself, and when he did it was with a thud."I'm interrupting," he said. "You're working. I should have phoned first.""I think most people start with hello," said Harry. "Hi," he added, pointedly. "God, I've missed you.""You saw me less than twelve hours ago," said Leo, gladly accepting the kiss that Harry pressed to his mouth, a thrill of delighted disbelief still running through his veins that he was allowed to have this."It isn't even close to the same thing."Leo didn't argue the point, principally because he agreed with it. Being in the office and seeing Harry constantly when they were surrounded by other people and a pressing need to at least mostly behave like professionals only served to underscore how little time or privacy they had had since their aborted first night together -- only three nights earlier, but it felt like an age.He allowed himself to be manhandled into the kitchen, to be kissed, to return kisses, to dip his head to Harry's open shirt collar and taste the salt in his suprasternal notch, to let joy fizz through him at the noise Harry made when he did that.The sight of Harry's kitchen table brought them both up a little short."I have interrupted," said Leo, needing to refocus a little to see the stacks of paper and the open laptop."Yes," said Harry clearly. "And I am delighted to have been interrupted.""Is it something pressing?"Harry looked as if he was about to dismiss the question out of hand, and then changed his mind and gave it serious thought. He slid a hand up to Leo's jaw. "Are you staying?" he asked. "Tonight?"Leo nodded."I'm in the middle of a report that I should send to the Met before I stop," Harry said. "I'm not on call tonight. You're not on call tonight. If you give me twenty minutes to finish this, I will be at your disposal until breakfast tomorrow and I promise that this time I won't leave." * Twenty-four minutes later, Harry powered down his laptop, stood up, and popped his spine. He drained the still hot mug of coffee that had appeared at his elbow a few minutes after Leo had realized that he couldn't reasonably simply sit and stare at Harry while he typed. He padded through to the living area. Now that he had given himself permission to stop working, his stomach squirmed pleasurably at the thought of what he'd find there as well as at the memory of opening the door to find Leo on the other side of it.Leo had helped himself to Harry's bookshelf and whiskey decanter, and had stretched out on the sofa. Harry leaned against the doorframe and gazed at him, the sight of him making himself at home in Harry's space and touching Harry's things and reading Harry's spy novels utterly intoxicating. A torrent of deeply buried fantasies were about to unleash themselves into Harry's brain when Leo, perhaps sensing that he was being watched, glanced up. He dropped Casino Royale on the sofa."You've finished.""I've stopped. The rest of it'll still be there in the morning.""Drink?" asked Leo.Harry shook his head minutely, held out a hand. "C'mere. Bed." * Leo's nerve endings were singing.The low thrum of arousal that he had been carrying around for the past three days had threatened to burst into a supernova at the touch of Harry's fingers to his wrist and the low growl of his invitation to bed.They had managed to turn lights out and lock doors and make it in one piece into Harry's bedroom, the only casualty a table lamp that they had knocked over while proving that they weren't coordinated enough to kiss and walk backwards at the same time.Leo had got Harry's shirt open and was taking advantage of being allowed to look his fill. A scrape of teeth over collarbone. A callused finger teasing what turned out to be a beautifully sensitive nipple. A nip to the spot behind his right ear that he'd been thrilled to discover by accident a few nights earlier made Harry squirm. His mouth trailing down torso, down to Harry's belt. A final kiss to Harry's waist, before his hand went for the belt buckle, head bobbing up to ask permission and being cut off by Harry's hands coming down to help. It turned out that four hands to unfasten one belt buckle was overkill, and it took them twice as long as it might otherwise have done, but neither of them complained, Leo easing jeans and boxers over Harry's hips and Harry kicking them off the side of the bed, toeing off his socks and sending them flying in the same direction.He nosed at Harry's cock, flushed and hard and springing free to curve up against his belly. Harry groaned.A final nuzzle, a curse and another deep groan from above his head, and he crawled back up Harry's body, settling his weight over him and catching his mouth in a kiss that quickly turned sloppy and dirty."You," said Harry, breaking the kiss, "You are wearing too many clothes.""What do you want?""Nudity."Leo laughed, warm breath on Harry's sweat-damp skin. "Harry.""There's lube and condoms in the bedside table," he said obliquely."Were you planning on getting lucky?""I thought, given what happened last time -- "Leo grinned into Harry's shoulder. The last time Leo had been in this bed, Harry had been forced to admit that all of his planning and contingencies had failed to take account of a scenario where Leo's answer had been yes. They had made do -- better than made do, Leo's cock reminded him, giving a twitch at memories of that night -- with hands and mouths. But the idea that Harry had made time in the middle of his case to run to a chemist, had got supplies, seemed, stupidly, to be concrete proof that he actually wanted this. It was ludicrous, Leo knew, given some of the conversations they'd had over the last few days, but there it was.The lube was being fumbled for, being pressed into his hands, and Harry was unzipping his trousers. Leo took the hint and finished stripping. As he turned to climb back into bed, he nearly swallowed his own tongue. Harry had tucked a pillow beneath his hips and turned over, sprawled himself across the sheets, gloriously bare, thighs parted, head turned and brown eyes gazing steadily at him."Yeah?" Leo's voice came out hoarse."Please." * They lay tangled together in the middle of Harry's bed, sated and drowsy.Leo's hand brushed Harry's, absently, as he wriggled to get more comfortable, then with greater purpose as he twined them together, using his thumb to trace the contours of Harry's bare left ring finger.Harry let him, for a minute, before he twisted onto his back, brown eyes meeting grey ones in the darkness."Isn't that jumping the gun a bit?" asked Harry, voice deliberately light."Yes," said Leo, but drew their hands up to kiss Harry's finger anyway. "I'm not asking, not yet. I just -- one day?" * Leo was sitting at Harry's kitchen table, cereal bowl and coffee mug shoved into the gaps between case files and religious imagery, dressed in yesterday's suit and a borrowed shirt, only slightly too broad in the shoulders.Harry was having difficulty keeping his hands to himself. A hand brushing over his shoulder as he reached for a plate, hands on his hips when they were both standing at the counter and he'd leaned over to get more coffee, fingers sliding absently into the hair at the base of his skull. Leo, for his part, made no objections, leaning into the touches, and, when Harry finally sat down with his toast, hooking an ankle around his and grinning. He thought his cheekbones might start to hurt, soon, if he didn't stop smiling so much."So, last night was kind of -- ""It really was," said Harry."Tonight?" Leo asked."Mm?" The corners of Harry's mouth turned up and his eyes sparkled. "It's not too -- I don't know, too much too soon?""If work behaves, we could get that drink and then -- oh, wait, damn." Leo's face fell. "I'm having dinner with my sister. I've already put her off twice. You could come?" he asked.Harry dissolved into laughter. "And ruin your dinner?""You've met Laura.""Yes, but at the time I was your brilliant yet mildly annoying junior colleague, not your -- whatever it is that we are now." "You aren't a secret," said Leo, with surprising firmness."And that's good of you," said Harry. "Truly. And by all means tell her about me, if that's what you want to do, but I'm just saying that this is a bombshell it might be better for you to drop when I'm not sitting right there looking awkward."Leo conceded the point with ill grace. "You could come to my place, after?" he suggested, hopefully."Yeah." Harry looked pleased. "Yeah. Okay." * "You never did tell me last night, how was your Reverend?" asked Leo, from Harry's passenger seat. At the point of them both leaving for work he had finally got round to admitting that he had walked the nearly five miles to Harry's flat the previous evening, needing to think."I had other things on my mind last night." Harry gave him a surprisingly dirty smirk. "She was -- normal, weird though that was.""She?""They do exist now. She didn't even damn me to hell when she realised she had an avowed atheist sitting in her church." Harry downshifted and braked for a pedestrian crossing. "Michael Patterson was gay. I nearly took her head off, nearly eviscerated her for the homophobia of the Church of England. I might be a little more than usually sensitive about it, this week," he added, ruefully. "But he had been there for nearly three years, had been quite open and out, she remembered him bringing a boyfriend with him, a few times, although nothing recent." "Liberal Christians?"Harry shrugged. "They exist, too, apparently. She said, more recently, he had been struggling. He had started to believe that the way he was was wrong, that he should change.""Because of the Church?""Reverend Holland says not." Harry frowned. "She thought it coincided with him getting a new flatmate. Steven Mcintyre. He claimed not to know much about Michael when the police interviewed him, but they're going to go back over there today. And then, two months ago, he up and left the church.""And they didn't -- knowing he was in trouble, knowing he was having mental health problems, no one followed up?" Leo asked, indignant. "They had been his friends for three years. They don't have a pastoral responsibility?""She claims that they tried, but phone calls went unanswered, emails went unreplied to. In the end, he was a grown man."Leo made a noise of disagreement."Did you ever?" Harry asked, glancing at him. "Believe?""Sunday School when I was a kid," he said. "My parents still -- Christmas and Easter, that sort of thing. Not for me. Not anymore. Not since -- well, you know when since." * By late afternoon, Harry was comparing partial DNA samples and looking at half-completed paperwork. Occasionally, pausing to contemplate the laser printed copy of Christ of St John of the Cross pushed to the edge of his desk.He ignored the intercom when it buzzed, and looked up absently when he heard Charlie's voice."There's a priest here to see you.""Oh." Harry stood up. "Reverend Holland, am I expecting you?""Lucy," she reminded him. "No, you aren't, and I'm sorry to barge in like this.""What can I do for you?""There was something I didn't tell you, yesterday," she said. "I didn't -- I don't like to point fingers at someone just because I disagree with their theology, no matter how evil and misguided that theology might be.""Evil?""I don't like to use that word. I like to think that I believe that everyone's interpretation of God is worthy of respect, even if I disagree with them, even if I don't believe their views are true. I want to believe that everyone approaches the idea of God from a place of love. But, yes -- if it caused Michael's death, then, yes, evil.""What do you think caused Michael's death?""I don't know that it did, that's the trouble.""Lucy," Harry said, as kindly as he could. "If it didn't, then it will go no further, I promise. But if it did, I have to know about it.""He had found a new church. He had started going there with that new flatmate of his, and -- They practice what they would call traditional theology."Harry guessed: "A bit more hellfire and brimstone?""They got inside his head, made him start questioning all the things he knew to be true, got him thinking he needed to be healed. I tried to argue with him, offered to pray with him, offered to get him other help, if he wanted, but his mind was made up.""His flatmate told the police that he didn't know anything about Michael's personal life.""He lied," said Lucy."This church -- ""The Church of Jesus Christ of the Good Shepherd," she said. "It's up in East Dulwich.""And does their traditional theology extend to stringing a man up on a tree and shoving a knife into his heart if he doesn't conform with what they want of him?"She looked at him, wide-eyed and terrified. "I don't know."Harry already had his mobile phone out. "Harry Cunningham for Detective Inspector Ahmed. I'll wait." He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. "DI Ahmed, have you re-interviewed Michael Patterson's flatmate yet? It needs to happen now. I'll pick you up and I'll explain on the way." * "You said that people with schizophrenia aren't violent.""They aren't," said Harry, foot flat to the floor of his car. "There is good evidence to suggest that they are far more likely to harm themselves than they are to harm other people, but just think. He lied to us about how much he knew about Michael Patterson's personal life when he had no earthly reason to do so. He didn't call the police when his flatmate didn't come home that night. If a man who is mentally unwell, who has auditory hallucinations, who has an illness that causes him to have grandiose delusions, beliefs that he has been put on Earth to perform some kind of sacred task, if you put a man with a brain that vulnerable into an environment where people give him the tools to justify those things as true and encourage him to -- " Harry sputtered, fishing for the words, "to -- to lead people who they think are broken to some kind of twisted salvation, what do you think is going to happen?" * Gathering up his jacket and wallet to leave, Leo glanced into the main office. Harry's desk was dark, messenger bag tucked underneath it.He thumbed the speed dial on his mobile phone.Voicemail."It's me," said Leo. "I'm just leaving work. Charlie mentioned that you had left earlier. I'm guessing you're not back yet. I'll call you when I'm on my way home. Okay." He patted his pockets. A second's hesitation, and he dug for the set of keys he had stashed in his jacket. "I've left my spare keys on your desk," he said, putting them down on top of some paperwork. "Um -- take care, love you, see you later." * The gangly, unkempt man who answered the door closed it back in their faces before Inspector Ahmed had got all the way through reminding him of their names.She knocked on the door again, hard."You said he didn't seem suspicious when you first interviewed him," observed Harry."He didn't," she said, continuing to knock. "He was nervous, a bit twitchy, but his flatmate had just been killed and he said he had a psychiatric condition, showed us his medication. He showed us his tenancy agreement, too. He's only lived here a few months.""Slamming the door in the face of the Metropolitan Police. That seems suspicious to me."As he bent to hammer on a window, the door swung open.A blond man, tall, wearing a dark suit and a salesperson's smile, stood in front of them."What can I do for you?" he asked pleasantly."We were looking for Mr McIntyre," said DI Ahmed. "I'm Detective Inspector Nadia Ahmed with the Metropolitan Police, and this is Dr Harry Cunningham, a Home Office pathologist. We had a few questions to ask in connection with his flatmate's death.""My understanding is that you've already spoken to Mr McIntyre." The smile didn't falter."There are a few clarifications to make," said Harry. "A few new pieces of evidence that have come to life."DI Ahmed crossed her arms. "We presume that Mr McIntyre does want us to find out why Michael was killed," she said.He relented and opened the door a little wider. "Well, certainly we wouldn't wish to inconvenience the police or the Home Office," he said, with an edge of sarcasm. "Steven, these people would like to ask you a few questions.""I'm Dr Cunningham," said Harry, entering the sitting room with his hand held out. "I'm the pathologist investigating Michael's murder. You've already met Inspector Ahmed." He turned to the nameless stranger in the room. "Are you Mr McIntyre's lawyer, sir?""No, certainly not," he replied. "Daniel Armitage. I'm here merely to support a friend and a member of my congregation. I am Mr McIntyre's pastor," he explained. "For a short time, I had the same role in Mr Patterson's life.""Was that at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Good Shepherd?"He turned surprised eyes on Nadia Ahmed. "You do do your homework," he said."Yes, we do," said Harry grimly."How did Michael Patterson come to attend your church?" she asked."Steven brought him," he said. "Michael was welcomed by the church. He found strength and courage in our teachings, found truth in our message. He sought salvation.""Is that true, Steven?""I was put on Earth by my Saviour Jesus Christ to do his will," said Steven McIntyre, looking at the ground."We are all called to be evangelists," said Armitage lightly.Harry changed tack: "Steven, how do you manage your schizophrenia?"The man looked startled. "The doctors gave me tablets," he said. "Olanzapine. I didn't like taking them.""Didn't?"A barely there intake of breath from Armitage. "Steven has come off his medication," he said, reluctantly. "He didn't need them anymore. We are healed through God. Do forgive me, Dr Cunningham, but I don't quite see how this relates to Michael's death."Harry made a non-committal noise. "It relates significantly to Michael's death if someone close to him was no longer taking the medication that kept him stable."The atmosphere was broken by the sharp ringing of a mobile phone. Inspector Ahmed pulled her phone from her pocket, and excused herself with a murmured apology."Steven, did you know that Michael was gay?" Harry asked.He met Harry's eyes. "It was a sin.""Why is it a sin?""If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act.""Leviticus," said Armitage."This is what you teach?" said Harry."We teach the word of God.""But Michael. He was trying to change, wasn't he?""At first," said Steven. "I took him to church with me. He told me afterwards that he saw that all the things he had been taught about it being okay and about God loving him anyway were all lies. He saw that he had to change, if he wanted to be saved."Harry asked. "And then what happened?"Armitage put out a restraining hand, stopping McIntyre from saying anything further.Inspector Ahmed sat back down. "Mr McIntyre," she said. "My officers have been looking into your background. You didn't tell us that until very recently you were a technician at a veterinary practice.""They said when I was coming off the drugs that I couldn't be relied on anymore. They said I was behaving oddly. They will have their day of judgement too.""What happened to Michael?" asked Harry."It was too hard for him," said McIntyre. "We went to church two weeks ago and heard a sermon, and when we came home Michael said that he couldn't believe it was true. He blasphemed, he called God names.""The sermon," said Harry gently. "What was it about?""It was on Leviticus," he said. "I knew. I knew then what God was telling me I had to do. I went to David, and he said -- he said I was right, he said I had been put on Earth to do God's work and that people like Michael were contrary to his will. I knew what I had been sent to do."A faint thud, and a chemical sent penetrated Harry's nose.He ignored it, looking up at Armitage instead. "Mr Armitage," said Harry. "What comes after that verse in Leviticus?"The man's hands were in his pockets, and his face had gone stony. "They must both be put to death," he said.A hand came out of his pocket, and plastic and flame flipped into the air, the cigarette lighter landing in the spreading pool of petrol that had been kicked across the carpet.There was a flash. * Leo snorted into his wine. "She actually said that?""Hanging around her Uncle Leo too much," said his sister fondly.Dinner with Laura had been good: excellent food, as there always was when he let her pick the restaurant, good wine, as there always was when she chose and he paid, and easy chatter about his nieces and nephews. But their evening had stretched out for longer than he'd thought, and he was becoming impatient to get home."Would you like to see the dessert menu?" asked their waiter, clearing away plates.Laura quirked an eyebrow at him.Leo tried to look surreptitiously at his watch."There's tiramisu," she cajoled. "Come on, Leo, anyone would think you were hurrying home for something."He bit his lip. "Yes, to the tiramisu. You know my weaknesses too well. But now that you come to mention it -- "And suddenly he was saved by the ringing of his phone."I thought you weren't on call," she said."I'm not." He frowned at the unfamilar number. "I should take this. Leo Dalton?" he said.
"Professor Dalton? This is Detective Constable James Mackenzie with the Metropolitan Police."
The voice was vaguely familiar; from the post mortem on Michael Patterson, he realised. "What's happened?" he asked immediately."There was an incident at a house where DI Ahmed and Dr Cunningham were interviewing a suspect," he said. "A fire."Leo's heart constricted his throat. "Where's Harry?" he demanded.
"He's been taken to A&E at King's College Hospital."
* "Harry Cunningham," Leo snapped."A relative?" the receptionist asked. "I'll tell the doctor that you're here."He fished in his wallet for his Home Office identification. "I need to see him right now."She didn't flinch. "I'll tell the doctor that you're here."Leo had flung down more money than their meal had cost on the table, promised his sister that he would call her later and explain everything, and run out of the restaurant, falling into the first cab and trying not to hyperventilate for the twenty minutes it took to drop him outside King's. He'd run across the ambulance bay, grateful that the hospital was one that he knew the shortcuts through, and arrived at A&E reception looking like a man possessed.He supposed he was hardly the worst thing they had seen.He had lost track of how long he had been pacing the floor and was about to give in to the pressing need to panic -- visions of nightmare scenarios flashing behind his eyes -- when his name was called, and then called again."Mr Dalton? Mr Dalton? You can go through now."He was barely through the door when he heard Harry's voice, loud and getting louder. The constriction in his throat eased.Harry was sitting on the end of a trolley, attached to a cardiac monitor and an oxygen mask, stinking of petrol."I'm fine," he was saying. "There's really no need for -- Leo." He sounded relieved. "There is every need for," Leo said firmly, breathing easier at the sight of him being his usual argumentative self and reaching out a hand for the one of Harry's that didn't have an oxygen probe attached to it. Not able to kiss him with the mask in place, he settled for tangling their fingers together and using his spare hand to uselessly check for holes in the bits of Harry not covered by scorched clothing. The dressing on his shoulder where his jumper had been cut away. The cotton wool taped in place across his wrist, where someone had taken a blood gas. He was acutely aware of his knees trying to give out.The young registrar looked thankful that someone had arrived who seemed prepared to talk sense."I'm fine," Harry repeated.Leo looked doubtful."He will be fine," she said. "He has a touch of carbon monoxide poisioning from the fire, and he's a little singed and bruised. I'd recommend oxygen and monitoring overnight, and home tomorrow if all is well.""Thank you, Doctor," he said.Harry looked mutinous, and removed his oxygen. "Leo, there is no earthly reason for me to -- ""Hey." Leo tugged the mask back down over his mouth and nose, and then gave into his impulses and kissed him on the forehead. "You need that. Jesus, when they called me from the scene, Harry, I thought you were dead.""You can't get rid of me that easily," he said, and then ruined it with a coughing fit."I'm going to stay here, okay?" Leo said softly, sliding onto the trolley next to him. "I'm just going to stay here and make sure."
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Epilogue
A fortnight after he had narrowly escaped being killed in a petrol fire in a South London flat, Harry spent a Monday morning giving evidence on the Michael Patterson case to the coroner and then returned to the office to spend his afternoon tying up the paperwork. The trial would come, in time. David Armitage was still in hospital, recovering from third degree burns and guarded by police officers. Steven McIntyre was detained in a psychiatric facility and already there had been murmurings in the CPS that he was unlikely ever to be well enough to go to court. The ice had thawed between Harry and DI Ahmed, who had attended coroner's court still on crutches. A shared near death experience did that, Harry had found.Finally, the last document had been uploaded to the server, the last piece of paper signed off and tossed into a box ready to be filed. Harry got up from his desk and walked to Nikki's, where she was bent over her own work. He had been relieved to find that they could work together as well as they ever had, but there'd been a brittle quality to their interactions that he regretted and hadn't yet made the time to fix, or really knew where to begin to do that."So, about that drink," said Harry.She looked up at him."I've one last meeting about this case before I can put it to bed. I was -- ah, I'm going to take Leo with me," he said, only a trifle awkward. "I thought, afterwards; all three of us? If you haven't other plans."Nikki's pride was bruised and her feelings still a little battered, but she recognised an olive branch when one was offered. "Well, you know my exciting social calendar," she said, drily. "The Hereford Arms?" * Leo was going through quarterly reports when Harry tapped on his door frame.They had spent only two nights apart since Harry's uncomfortable night spent not sleeping on a hospital trolley; the inability to keep their hands off one another that came in the flush of a new relationship, yes, but also reheated lasagne, and quiet conversation, and we're-both-taking-work-home-tonight-so-why-not-take-it-home-together, and more laughter than Leo remembered in his life in a long time, and falling asleep on the sofa like the overworked and exhausted men they were. And one of those nights together had been spent with an overturned coach and half of London's emergency services as well as with each other, but that was the sort of thing they had known they were getting into. The perils of the job.It was all what anyone else would probably say was a little too much and a great deal too soon, and they couldn't quite bring themselves to care."I'm going to Southwark Cathedral," said Harry, gazing down at him. "To see Michael Patterson's priest." * The lights of the church glowed when they stepped inside, out of the damp and fading London evening. At the far end of the building, almost out of sight, a choir practiced warm up exercises. Lucy Holland stood to one side of the wide altar, discussing something with another priest and a woman dressed in jeans and a wool peacoat, but when she saw Harry she made her apologies and hurried up the aisle towards them."We don't mean to disturb," said Leo."No, no, not at all; Dr Cunningham, it's good to see you. I read about what happened, and, well -- No lasting damage, I hope."Harry shook his head. "This is Leo Dalton," he introduced, obliquely.They shook hands. "We wouldn't usually be open at this time. We're getting ready for a funeral tomorrow. Michael's funeral," she added."I came because I didn't see you at the inquest," said Harry."I didn't go," she said. "I didn't feel I had any possible right to go. Just like -- Michael's father wanted his son brought back here, but after the way we failed him. The way I failed him. I can't help but feel he'd be better laid to rest somewhere else.""You didn't fail him." Harry's voice was firm. "You did what you could for him.""I could have done more.""We all could always have done more," said Leo. Lucy turned her eyes on him. "You can spend the rest of your life beating yourself up for something that wasn't your fault, but it's no way to live. Trust me.""You've lost someone," she said."My wife and daughter were killed," he said. "I spent a lot of time feeling guilty about it. Years. I should have been there, I should have stopped it. Don't. The blame for Michael Patterson's death belongs to his murderers."Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.In the quiet of the near empty church, an organ struck a chord and the space was filled with the voices of the choir.
"Ubi caritas at emor, deus ibi est -- "
"Are they practicing for Michael?" asked Harry.She nodded. "This was one of his favourite pieces."
" -- congregavit nos in unum Christi amor -- "
"Lucy, there are two people who were responsible for his death; one of them was very unwell and very vulnerable and is now getting the treatment that he needs, and one of them was a delusional psychopath who got his kicks from preying on that vulnerability, and he will eventually come to trial and then spend the rest of his miserable life in prison. The fact that that has happened without either of them doing more damage to anyone is largely down to you."
" -- Exsultemus et in ipso jucundemur -- "
"I'm not sure I can believe that."
" -- timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum -- "
"Try," said Harry. He went on: "You know that I don't believe in what you believe, and that I don't understand it much. I do believe in love. I believe in places that feel safe, and people who feel like home. The first time I met him, Michael's father told me that this was that place for Michael." His face was very kind when he met her eyes. "Do him proud," he said.
" -- Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero."
She watched them walk together towards the door, footsteps echoing on the ancient stone. Leo's hand reached for Harry's.