The scream was horrifying. Bodie was listening with clenched fists: there was nothing he could do for Doyle; his lover was being tortured while he had to sit here and listen.


It had been such an easy job, Bodie reflected - to pick up Liam O'Brien and his gang, who had been tracked down at an old house in a fairly smart area of town. It had all gone well in that the A squad had met with surprisingly little resistance.

As McCabe and Lucas were taking O'Brien and his cousin Damian to the car, Damian had seemed to trip. That had made Lucas pause, and at the same time Liam O'Brien had stamped his boot heel onto McCabe's trainer shod foot and pushed him over.

Both Liam and Damian had immediately legged it.

Bodie, Doyle and Murphy had been rounding up the last gang members but realising what had happened they had started to give chase.

The O'Briens had taken off in the direction of the field behind the next house and once there, Bodie had realised they could easily lose their pursuers.

There had been a greenhouse at the back of the house, and an older man had come out of it as the O'Briens had run past and into it. Bodie and Doyle had followed them.

Once among the rows of plants, the O'Briens had split up and so did Bodie and Doyle.

Bodie had followed Liam, while Doyle had chased after the more agile Damian, ducking as plants and tools were thrown at him. Bodie had seen both of them reaching the door at the other end of the greenhouse, had seen Damian looking around for his cousin, and then had seen Doyle unable to sidestep a trolley, loaded with some sort of greenery, the Irishman had pushed in his path.

Then he'd watched Doyle take a heavy fall...and right now they had him in there, a few steps away from him.

Clenching and unclenching his fists, Bodie could still hear the screams, Doyle was in pain.

"What the hell are they doing to him?" he snarled at Murphy, who had joined him.

"Bodie, calm down, mate. There's nothing you can do. You know what could happen if you go in."

"I'm a dead man." Bodie sighed.

Another loud scream brought Bodie to his feet. He couldn't stand it any longer: he strode to the door and threw it open, only to be greeted by a remarkable sight.

Bodie's mouth twitched as he tried to suppress a grin, but nothing could contain it.

"Bodie!" a voice bellowed from the examination bed. "I'm going to kill you if you find this funny."

"Ray, I'm sorry," Bodie tried to speak despite holding back the laughter. "It just looks so..."

Doyle was lying face down, dressed in a T-shirt and nothing else, while three nurses with large sharp tweezers were removing numerous cactus needles from his backside.

Grinning broadly, Bodie said to Doyle: "Well, mate, nobody's going to pinch your bum for a while." Then he beat a hasty retreat.

-- THE END --

May 2005