| Call Me Daddy
© Xeen PART 1 “Lynley? My office now, please?” Detective Chief Inspector Hillier barked. “Sir?” Lynley put an instinctive distance between DCI Hillier and himself, standing still opposite his desk while the other one intently kept him waiting. “We found a new lead in the Collins case, Sir,” he finally offered. “I understand that Stuart Lafferty retrieved a trace of….” “Havers is due back on Wednesday, isn’t she?” Hillier interrupted. Lynley did not show any sign of annoyance. “I believe she took some extra days off, Sir,” he said, “she… will be back to the Met next Monday actually.” “She cleared that with you, I believe?” “Absolutely Sir, yes, she did.” A bit too loud, a bit too convincing. He heard me hesitate, he thought, making a brilliant show at hiding his embarrassment. “Very well, then. Now, keep me updated on the Collins case, will you?” --- DI Thomas Lynley had not heard a single thing from Havers in two weeks. 19 days to be accurate, he said to himself. Not something he was ready to happily volunteer the information with anyone. This exchange programme with the US police was a vast waste of time. His time and hers. She was needed here. How was he supposed to solve crimes and arrest dangerous criminals without her help? She was his sergeant for Heaven’s sake! He had been a fool to indulge her into that programme. He wanted to boost her self esteem so to speak. The moment he realised she had enrolled for the exchange, it was too late to call off his bluff. When it came to solving crime, she was far ahead those NYPD officers she seemed to like so much. They were not even in the same league. Their techniques were not a bit as sophisticated as ours, we, the champions of CCTV! However, she sounded very enthusiastic over the phone for the first couple of weeks. Not that she was not later on. She simply stopped calling him. He did not bother him at first. Then he began to miss her late (or very early) phone calls depending on her schedule for the day. But he never questioned himself until he found out she was in fact calling her neighbour Azhar Taymullah on a twice a week basis to have “some serious girlie talks” with Haddiyah. The little girl took him by surprise last week when he was riding through Acton on his way back from a crime scene and she had been very expressive about their lovely conversations over the phone. Well, she was probably too busy or too tired to call him as well, he thought with a twist of resentment. It was a big step for her to go to the US on her own and to be part of this new experimental programme. She was so excited to leave and to show “the other side of the pond that the Met is in the 21st century of battling crime too, Sir!” He had eventually taken her to Heathrow, carried her worn out suitcase, resisted to hugging her before she boarded her plane. And now, a very few weeks later, he was no longer part of her new agenda. He felt he had fallen off her radar and he did not know what to do to make things right. To be perfectly honest, he did not know how to make things back to the way they were before she left, not really to make them right. For that matter, he knew the two of them should have had “some serious talk” of another kind a long time ago. Probably long before she had found out he was a main suspect in that murder rape case. Bedding his friend’s daughter was more than a bad idea, but he was lonely and tired and she was quite outgoing to say the least. What was done was done. But Havers had been bearing him a grudge since then. --- “You see, Sir, I tried to help you when Helen died. Gave you plenty of space, reached out to you even. You never bothered. And now you call for my help? That’s not fair, Sir.” “I know, Hav… Barbara. I was a fool. What happened was an accident …” “You mean she tripped and fell down onto the pavement 3 stories down?” “No, no! Of course not! What do you think, Havers? That I’m hiding evidence or lying on what has happened that night?” “Are you?” “You know what I mean to say…” “Actually I don’t, Sir.” She was in police mode. That was bad. “It was an accident. I was not going to sleep with her that night. I have no idea why I let things go out of control.” He trailed, trying his puppy look on her. To no use. “An accident, Sir?” she was staring, unblinkingly and clearly outraged. Now that she had said that, he knew she was more than petulant about his conduct. But he was not even remotely prepared for what she was about to say next. “‘Cause I have the funny feeling that accidents are usually more like, say ‘you trip and you sprain an ankle’, you see. Not ‘you trip and you stick your... thing’ in someone,” she stated matter of factly. “I didn't mean an accident as much as a… mistake. Please, Barbara?" But she had left already. --- As far as he was concerned, the main issue was that he had no idea what on earth he had said to piss her off -this time. It could have been anything he had said or not said over the phone. And then this morning, just as he was back from retrieving his first cappuccino of the day from the machine, there was DSC Winston Nkata showing off his usual extrovert banter to an already conquered audience. “… intends to visit Paris with a friend on her way back.” “You mean Havers?” Lynley asked, burning his hand on the hot cup. “Yes Sir! She said it was her best opportunity at taking some leave.” Winston suppressed a smirk. “Evidently!” “I can’t wait to meet the lad she’s bringing back with her, Sir.” “Yes, of course…” She had planned a trip to Paris with some flat foot from NYC and did not even bother to tell. Well, to tell him that is. Considering Nkata seemed to have all the details. Nursing his coffee, Lynley turned his back on his colleagues, their conversation fading in the distance. He gave an oblique look in the hallway and entered his office. He closed the doors with caution. Not the time to make a fool of himself. He will merely wait and see. Bury himself into clerical work. Push Lafferty to the limits. Surely, she will let him know. He was supposed to pick her at Heathrow the day after tomorrow. She would not stand him up. TBC |
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