Ah, it's so nice to breathe fresh air again! I'd almost forgotten what cow and horse, pig and sheep smelt like! Ripe isn't QUITE the word I'd choose, but after so long away, anything smells good.

Think I've missed the trees and green fields most, though -- the sweet succulent scent of fresh-mown grass, and the homely tang of rich wet earth...Everything seems to bright, so new, washed clean by the rain, and dried by the breeze and the sunshine...

SunLIGHT -- no sunshine now. That went out of my life a long time ago. Funny how one little ray of sunshine can make all the difference...

It was a long time in the past, but I still remember how good it was between us. We could meet, oh-so-casually, not by chance, and spend an evening together. Then it became all night - just the odd night -- alternating flats, planning our next rendezvous. We were always impatient for more: it was fun.

We did the sorts of things lovers the world over do. Some evenings, knocking off work after dark, we would go up to the woods, to walk and talk, holding hands, or wander in silence, our arms around one another. We had a tryst that nobody else knew about. Warm nights, one of us would bring a blanket and we would go there, strip off and lay together, kissing, touching, holding each other. The very first time we made love was up in the forest -- I can still remember his body pressed against mine, silky hair brushing the length of me as he stropped himself against my belly, teasing me to desire. When I was hard, and so high with wanting him, he knelt over me, took me in hand and lowered himself carefully...The feeling of loving him, being inside that beautiful body, filling him with everything I had haunts my dreams even now...I could never get enough of him while I had him -- his love was a drug, and I was well and truly addicted. I craved being close to him, to see him smile that secret sexy smile that was for me alone. I touched him every chance I could -- hands brushing accidentally when we went to the coffee machine, or passing on the stairs...I was obsessed with him, and I know he felt the same for me...

I think that was what killed him.

He went to Cowley and asked if he could be reassigned. Cowley refused initially and talked to Bodie, wondering why, after so long as a team, Ray would want a new partner.

Bodie didn't know, of course -- nobody else did -- and he came to me, unhappy and angry, needing a reason. I couldn't bear the hurt look in his eyes, and I bottled out at the last minute, unable to tell him the truth...

Cowley sent me up north to co-ordinate an operation in Liverpool, and after three days, Ray stopped calling me. Things, he said, were -- difficult -- at the moment. Bodie was going through a bad patch, and needed help...

The day I got back, Ray and I agreed to meet up in the woods. It was a beautiful day, halfway through a semi-tropical heatwave, and I couldn't wait to get at him.

At five o'clock, Bodie passed on a message that Ray might be late, and he asked if I'd care to join him for a drink. I was too strung out with wanting to feel comfortable about appearing in public and pleaded exhaustion. I collected the blanket and drove out to the wood, anticipating our loving...

I heard them long before I reached our hideaway. Threading my way stealthily through the trees, I came on them.

"You little bastard! Walk away from me, would you?" The man with his back to me was breathing heavily, as if he'd been running -- or fighting.

"You're mine! You've always been mine! No-one else's!"

There was a whimper, half-choked, a wounded-animal cry from the ground at his feet. Ray was naked, his body patterned with bites and bruises. Someone had really worked him over...

I dropped the blanket and stepped into the clearing.

"Bodie! What the hell's going on?" Stupid thing to do.

He rounded on me, his eyes glittering with hatred. I noticed the bloodied knuckles and the unconcealed erection.

Ray raised his head. "Bodie, please -- don't -- "

Ignoring him, Bodie stepped forward. "You took him away from me -- he's mine! He's always been mine! Keep your hands off him!"

"If Ray wants me, that's his business, not yours."

It was just the wrong thing to say, wasn't it? Bodie struck without warning, sent me reeling across the den to collide with the trunk of a tree. I slid to the ground gracelessly and stayed there, swimming in and out of consciousness while Bodie turned his attention to his partner...

That Ray was raped before he died is common knowledge. Bodie had him several times, beating him into submission with manic fury. The last time, he jerked Ray's head back so hard that his neck snapped.

When I next came round, it was to a puddle of moonlight that showed only too clearly what had happened. Ray was dead, cold and stiff, and Bodie was gone.

I crawled back to where I'd left the blanket and brought it back to cover him. Then I sat beside him and cried, stroking his hair and telling him over and over how much I loved him, how beautiful he was. And I made him a promise that if it took me till my dying day, I would avenge him. Bodie would pay for my lover's life with his own...

I was sent down for murder. That much you do know -- but as I told Kate Ross, and Cowley, and even Geraldine Mather, I didn't kill Ray Doyle. How the hell could I, when I loved him so much?

I've spent the last five years in prison -- behaving in an exemplary manner -- and finally, I won my appeal.

Lucas came to fetch me and drove me out to the country so that I could get the feel of being free again. It's a very, VERY good feeling, I can tell you.

On the way back, because it was us and we had been friends as well as fellow agents in CI5, we started to discuss my plans for the future, and whether I would accept Cowley's offer to rejoin the squad.

I shook my head. "Too many memories," I sighed.

"That's a pity," he replied. "We're down on experienced men. I mean, with -- Doyle -- dying -- like that, and you being in the nick -- " He shot me a sidelong glance, to see how I was taking it. "We lost a couple of good agents in a shoot-out a month or so back..." Lucas slowed the car. "Cowley still hasn't forgiven Bodie for disappearing the way he did..."

"No," I replied idly.

"I expected he hopped the next flight out to Africa, after Ray -- " he swallowed, " -- well, you know. I don't expect we'll ever see him again..."

I shook my head. No, I thought, I don't expect so either. Five years is, after all, a long time -- and I made bloody certain he was dead before I buried him!

THE END

For Barbara S.