The questioning tone was warning enough, Bodie's glance at his partner's intent face an unnecessary confirmation. Trying to pretend he hadn't heard Doyle say his name in just that way, his sigh mixed resignation and exasperation as he kept his attention on the rain-slick road and the queues of stationary cars which stretched in every direction. The hypnotic sway of the windscreen wipers did nothing to reduce the condensation on the inside of the glass which, combined with the diffused glare of headlamps, produced a surreal effect but the interior of the car was snug enough. There were times when he quite enjoyed the quiet life nowadays, cross-examinations from Ray notwithstanding.

"Bodie?"

"I heard you the first time," he said peaceably.

"Then why didn't you say something?"

"I was thinking."

"I suppose it had to happen some time," returned Doyle, but his heart wasn't in the retort. He had been wearing a preoccupied frown since they met up in the car park outside CI5 headquarters. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Fat chance I've got of stopping you. The traffic's bad tonight," Bodie added, in the faint hope of diverting the conversation from himself. Doyle's expression of dogged determination warned that, come what may, he would discover the truth and set it remorselessly at Bodie's feet.

"Traffic's always bad on a wet Friday night in Central London. You know Cowley gave me Van der Looen to interrogate this afternoon."

"Yes," Bodie agreed warily.

"It seems you and Van der Looen worked together for a while out in Africa."

"For a couple of months," agreed Bodie with caution.

Doyle moved in for the kill. "You never told me you were in Biafra for some of your time out there."

"Yes, I did. You just never bothered to listen," retorted Bodie with spirit, being a firm believer in the adage that attack was the best method of defence.

Losing patience with their lack of progress, he slapped on the siren he was supposed to reserve for emergencies and headed the car the wrong way up a one-way side street.

Sublimely confident in his partner's abilities, Doyle ignored the Cortina whose paintwork had come within flinching distance of their Capri and twisted on his seat the better to watch the other man drive.

Wearing a wall-to-wall grin of exuberant delight Bodie steered a tortuous path through a maze of narrow back streets, doubling back on the trail more than once. With a decided flourish he finally returned the car to the main road a good hundred yards further up from the spot where they had left it.

"Howzat?" he said with satisfaction.

The amused glint in his eyes giving the lie to his impassive expression, Doyle leant forward to flick a switch, which silenced the siren.

Bodie gave him a look of reproach.

"Save the sheep's eyes. You should have learnt that they don't work on me by now," Doyle advised him. "You've had your fun and I can't hear myself think with that thing blaring away. Besides, there's no rush. Cowley must be losing his grip to give us the weekend off. Whose flat are we going to use?"

The change of subject from his activities in Africa took Bodie by surprise; this reprieve wasn't at all in character. "Whichever you like. There's nothing to choose between them for distance to headquarters, and as you dragged me round that supermarket yesterday we've both got plenty of food. It would be far easier if we just shacked up together," he groused, privately convinced that once they were living together he would magically be able to avoid all the more boring domestic chores.

"OK," said Doyle equably.

"Eh?" Wondering if he had missed something, Bodie concentrated on inching the car along at a steady five miles per hour.

"Did you or did you not just ask me to shack up with you? Or vice versa. Anyway, the answer's yes - just so long as you find a way of selling the news to Cowley."

"Thanks a bundle. How am I supposed to do that?"

"I've no idea," said Doyle with truth. "That's not my problem. Lucas and Mac were talking about sharing a place at one time. Though I don't think it was for the same reason as us. Where are we going?" he added, as Bodie pulled into a newly vacated, if illegal, parking space.

"I want a word with you."

His hands folded demurely in his lap, Doyle was the picture of attentiveness, but his faint frown betrayed him. "About what?"

"Why I had to ask you about us living together." Bodie conveniently managed to forget that he had done no such thing.

"Because you've got more bottle than me." With that simple reply Doyle took the wind out of his partner's sails. The tactic was not accidental and his reply was less than honest, but it was the closest to the truth he felt able to get.

"Oh." Absorbing the implications, Bodie's smile spoke volumes before he gave Doyle a wry look. "In case you hadn't noticed, I didn't actually come out and ask you. Not in so many words."

"Which disposes of the question of your bottle. Either you're as gutless as me, or you don't fancy the idea."

"Guilty as charged - to the first bit," Bodie added quickly, lest there should be any misunderstanding.

Elbow propped on the passenger door, fingers clenched in his hair, Doyle's gaze was on the middle distance. "It's a big step. Are you sure you want this?"

Left with no alternative when he heard the doubt in the quiet voice, Bodie stared with determination through the misted windscreen, where fat raindrops were worming their way down the glass. "I'm positive. Nervous, mind."

"What about?"

His attention attracted by a change in Doyle's voice, Bodie grinned and nudged Doyle's chin with his clenched fist. "Got delusions of grandeur, you have. Not of you. The part where I have to beard Cowley in his den," he admitted. He got the car underway again because having something to do made it easier to keep talking.

"You'll cope," said Doyle with serene confidence.

"You know what you are?"

"Spoken for."

The contentment in Doyle's voice was such that Bodie sat beaming fatuously through the windscreen, oblivious to irate drivers blaring their horns behind him when he failed to respond to the green traffic light.

Doyle patted him on the thigh. "Now I know it must be love. Get a move on, hotshot."

"I thought there was no rush?" remarked Bodie, crossing the lights just as they changed from amber to red.

"That was until I realised we've got things to celebrate. I'll buy us a meal."

"Blimey," said Bodie, duly impressed.

"Just drive," Doyle advised him in a tolerant tone. "I'm talking fish and chips back at your place not dinner at the Ritz in a penguin suit."

"Either you're cheap or I'm easy."

"Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Besides, I fancy fish and chips."

"What about the other? Or are you going to play hard to get?"

"What would be the point, you'd never believe it," said Doyle realistically.



"About Van der Looen," pursued Doyle later that evening, from where he lay sprawled along the sofa and Bodie.

All drooping eyelids and pouting mouth, Bodie was experiencing the fatigue of a man who has just given a good account of himself. Despite appearances to the contrary he proved his wakeful state by giving a theatrical groan.

"Bloody hell! Do you have to sigh like that? My goosebumps have got goosebumps," Doyle groused as he snuggled back against the warm cushion provided by living flesh. He continued to wriggle until he was completely comfortable. The pair of them occupying one corner of the generously proportioned sofa, he was tucked in the hollow formed by Bodie's arms and upraised legs, which Bodie had wrapped around him.

"Comfortable?" inquired Bodie.

His sarcasm passed unchallenged, a sure sign of his partner's contentment.

"As I was saying, Van der Looen told me about some of the stuff you and he got up to while you were in Biafra." Doyle ran his cupped hand up and down Bodie's shin.

"Piet wouldn't recognise the truth if it bit him on the arse," dismissed Bodie, his knuckles brushing along Doyle's collar bone as he inhaled the scents of the other man's hair. "He never could resist embroidering a story. One day it'll be the death of him."

"So what he told me about you delivering twins wasn't true?" Doyle craned his neck to ensure he could enjoy his partner's expression to the full.

Bodie elected not to hear him.

An experienced Bodie watcher, Doyle noted all the betraying signs of embarrassed guilt. In an unusually mellow mood, he did not capitalise on the advantage he had won for himself.

"Van der Looen said a lot of other stuff, of course. I don't know how much of it was true. But it made me realise. You've always told me you conquered Africa single-handed, but you didn't say much else. I wondered if there was anything you wanted to tell me."

Bodie withdrew his nose from fat chestnut curls, a wary look crossing his face.

"Like what?"

"If I knew that I wouldn't be asking. Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Want to confide in me?" pursued Doyle with exaggerated patience.

"No."

"That's it, is it, 'no'. Was it that bad?" Doyle's thumb gently circled the pale skin of Bodie's inner wrist, following the blue-green tracery of veins.

Bodie closed his eyes for a moment. "There weren't many highlights, that's for sure. Aren't there things in your past you'd rather forget?"

"Of course there aren't. Maybe one or two," Doyle admitted moments later.

Abruptly reminded that there were over two decades of Doyle's life about which he knew very little, Bodie straightened where he sat. Except for the odd maxim thrown in to annoy, or the occasional villain returning to haunt him, Ray had said little of substance about his days in the Metropolitan Police and virtually nothing about his formative years.

Frowning, Bodie sorted through the information he had been given. Ray had mentioned running wild as a kid and needing some discipline after he got into a knife fight. And he had been to Art College for a while, leaving when he realised his small talent did not make him the next Picasso. Typical Ray, that, refusing to accept second best. It was a characteristic which had kept them alive more than once. Then, of course, he knew the all-important detail of where Ray had once had it away as a kid - if not where he had lost his cherry.

Bodie's frown deepened. It wasn't much. He didn't even know if Ray had any family alive. Apart from glancing references to his mum Doyle never mentioned them. No one had ever visited the times he had been in hospital. Not that Bodie ever pressed him on the subject, let alone mentioned his own family.

The omission on Bodie's part owed nothing to some great trauma in his background - quite the reverse in fact. Bodie had run away from his comfortable home only because he had not been able to stand the boredom of living with the rigid respectability of his ancient parents. The youngest of five children, he had been a mistake conceived during what his mother had placidly believed to be her menopause. His siblings had all been twenty-plus years older than himself, his parents bemused by this disruption to what they had planned for a peaceful early retirement spent cultivating prize begonias.

Bodie gave a rueful grimace. The poor buggers must have wondered what had hit them. While only in their mid-forties when he had been born, he thought that mentally they must have been old all their lives. The taking of chances or trying of new experiences was not for them, dull mediocrity their only aspiration. Even the ebullient hooligan he had been hadn't been able to shake them from their placid rut. But he still felt a residual twinge of guilt for the fact that by the time he had been interested enough to seek out his parents again they had been dead for several years. The siblings he could scarcely remember had been scattered across the world; there had been no point in contacting strangers just to let them know he was alive.

The thought that Ray's childhood might not have been so dull or untroubled refused to go away. Not that he could do much about it, but he would do his best.

The incorruptible ex-Detective Constable Raymond Doyle, thought Bodie fondly.

Sadly that incorruptible streak didn't know when to stop. He been lumbered with a bloke so righteous that Doyle wouldn't even take part in the squad pastime of fiddling his expenses - and he had sabotaged Bodie's attempts to make a profit on more than one occasion.

Moral he might be, at least no one would ever accuse Ray of being dull, Bodie mused, still of the view that dullness was one of the seven deadliest sins.

Tucking his arm tighter around Doyle's chest and feeling the soft body hair which brushed his inner arm, Bodie gave his companion a brief, affectionate squeeze and nuzzled the top of his head.

"What was it really like for you? Being a copper in London I mean."

"I thought you were tired of hearing me go on about the old days?" said Doyle without much interest.

"I've changed my mind. What was it like?"

In the mood to humour his partner, Doyle thought about it.

"Bloody boring a lot of the time. Mountains of paperwork. Once I was a DC the number of forms in triplicate only seemed to increase - though my typing improved. Too much of the time I was stuck behind a desk - or in the witness box having some barrister tie me in verbal knots."

"And the other times?"

"Ah, those times." Doyle was silent for a moment. "CI5's better. Well, not that you can really compare the two. There certainly isn't the bureaucracy here that there was on the force. But the work isn't the same. I reckon the job is easier to deal with in CI5. Or maybe I've just got used to the things people do to each other. I mean, walk down the street - any street - and everyone looks normal enough." His voice trailed away.

Kissing a partially exposed earlobe, Bodie gave Doyle's stomach a comforting rub. Occasionally spiky of temper and prone to being a pain in the arse when it came to relinquishing a problem, Ray was the one bloody constant in his life. It was quite something to know he was there, and that he always would be, come what may. Sometimes the responsibility of maintaining his end of the relationship scared Bodie silly.

"Get to you, did it?" he asked quietly, his tone matter of fact.

Staring into the middle distance, his eyes narrowed as if he was in pain, Doyle slowly exhaled. "At first it gets to everyone, though you cover for it the best you can. You have to learn to close yourself off so it can't get to you."

"Yeah?"

"I'm serious," snapped Doyle, giving an irritable wriggle before he relaxed with a sigh of defeat. "OK, maybe that isn't always possible. It's better than the alternative."

"How do you mean?" Bodie felt sure he knew but wanted to keep his partner talking.

"The trouble with protecting yourself is that it can go too far. You have to feel something or you might as well climb in your coffin and pull down the lid. Some of the older blokes coming up to their twenty-fifth year on the Force." Doyle gave an unconscious shiver. "I didn't want to end up like them."

"So you joined CI5 to get away from it all?"

His head turning, Doyle gave a faint rueful grin of acknowledgement. "No need to rub it in. I'm obviously as stupid as you."

"Match made in Heaven, that's us," said Bodie with a comfortable certainty.

"I don't think Heaven's got much to do with us, mate. Or CI5, come to that. Cowley chose the perfect moment to recruit me as far as I was concerned. I was bloody glad to have - excuse the pun - a cop-out."

Bodie frowned. "How do you mean? Don't tell me you had problems with your superiors? And you with your winning ways."

Doyle dug an elbow into a vulnerable section of his partner. "Not so much problems as the fact I'd come to a dead end. There was no way my career was going any where but down the tubes. You're not supposed to grass on your own kind. If Cowley hadn't approached me when he did, I would have handed in my notice."

Bodie stared at the head propped against his chest. "It's not like you to give up."

"That's all you know," said Doyle wryly. "It all started after I shopped Preston. Worst time of my life, that was. While nobody loved a bent copper, they wanted someone who made waves even less.

"Christ, I used to get so frustrated! The worst of it was that there was nothing for me to fight. I mean I had no problem handling the odd Neanderthal who thought pounding me to a pulp would protect the honour of the force. It was the feeling of being... I dunno, excluded. There was this intangible something that blighted every aspect of my life in the Force. It was like trying to sculpt fog."

Doyle gave a weighty sigh and grimaced. "I'd never been what you might call one of the boys. I had no time for all the funny handshakes and deals made in the pub. But after I shopped Preston I was left feeling like a stranger in a strange land. I've never understood the credo that says one for all and all for one - whatever's going down. In my book if you want respect you have to earn it. You don't do that by abusing a position of trust. It doesn't take many rotten apples to taint all of us." There was still a betraying note of disillusion in his quiet voice.

Bodie began to wonder exactly what Doyle's years on the Force had been like. He could make an enlightened guess and his heart went out to the other man. Ray had never been on more than nodding terms with the concept of compromise and - while he would deny it heatedly - he had a strict code of morality. Ray might not always give the impression of being a good mixer but he was a sociable bloke - so long as he could run any relationship on his own terms. Or believe he did, amended Bodie smugly.

"No, it doesn't take many bad 'uns to sour the rest," he agreed. "Though I don't think you need to worry. There's no danger of you turning bad." Flat conviction coloured his every word.

Doyle gave an unimpressed snort. "Not that you're biassed, of course."

He sat forward and edged out of Bodie's embrace. Rubbing a backside irritated by the fabric of the sofa, he pulled on a thick towelling bathrobe and tossed another to his partner. Having refilled both their glasses with the last of the wine, he handed a glass to Bodie while choosing to remain on his feet.

"Why do you hate the police so much?" he asked abruptly, staring down at the other man.

"I don't," denied Bodie.

"Right. You should listen to yourself sometimes."

"Then you must just be thinking of that time with Green and his men. Because - whatever I might say to you - I don't have a problem with the British police. Not most of them, anyway," Bodie added under the influence of his partner's unwavering stare. "I suppose I saw too many of the wrong sort in East Germany and Angola. Biafra, too. I've met a few real charmers over here, come to that." His expression brightened. "It's a pity you and me never met up when we were younger - professionally, so to speak."

"No, it's not, because the odds are that I'd have had to arrest you."

"Tried to you mean."

"Put your glass down and say that again," invited Doyle, looming over him.

"Time for bed," decided Bodie cravenly, tugging persuasively on the belt of Doyle's robe.

"Who do you think you are - Zebedee?"

"Who?"

"You've never seen the Magic Roundabout? No, thinking about it, I suppose you were too busy out in Africa delivering twins and fainting," said Doyle, just before he made a dash for it.

He received his comeuppance on the floor of the hall, which was where Bodie caught up with him.



Tickled without mercy, Doyle was an exhausted sprawl on the carpet.

"I said I was sorry," he said, all large, contrite eyes and inviting mouth.

"Ah, but did you mean it?"

"Of course I didn't," said Doyle with scorn.

"That's all right then."

"No it's not. My bum's bloody sore. Carpet burns, I expect," he added bravely.

"We'll probably be able to avoid major surgery. Turn over while I have a look."

Doyle gave him an exceedingly hard stare.

"Trust me."

"Right."

"Honest to god, Ray. The spirit might be willing but the flesh has definitely had it for tonight."

"Yeah? That's a relief. I thought it was just me."

"I suppose you older men do have to worry about that sort of thing," agreed Bodie, his tone one of pious sympathy.

As Doyle was on his stomach by this time and Bodie had had the forethought to take him in an arm lock, Doyle was in no position to retaliate. He knew better than to wriggle in this position; the harshness of the hall carpet had already made its mark.

"You wait," he promised, trying to crane his neck enough to see what was going on behind him.

"Save your breath. We both know I'll enjoy it."

"Have you forgotten you're supposed to be looking after the carpet burn on my bum?" Doyle inquired. While his tone was tart he was making no attempt to escape.

"What do you think I'm doing?" demanded Bodie.

"Sucking it. Is that your teeth I can feel?"

"If it isn't this flat has a ghost with excellent taste. Come on, up you get, I'm freezing out here."

"Self, self, self," moaned Doyle. "Right, come on Zebedee. It's time for bed. If you're going to be having a chat with Cowley tomorrow you'll need to be as fresh as the proverbial daisy."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather do it?"

"Positive," said Doyle serenely, giving his partner an ungentle shove in the direction of the bedroom.

As Bodie had braced himself, not a lot happened.

---

Doyle's gaze never left the Georgian manor house which sat in a picture-book valley, its mellow brickwork glowing in the early morning light. Set like a jewel in a park with mature oaks and cedars and a fine lake, it was surrounded by farmland. Cows were grazing in the neat patchwork-quilt fields, and bluebells and cowslips burgeoned all around them. The only sounds were those made by a wood pigeon in the distance. Idyllic, if you happened to be a country lover.

A child of the streets, who regarded the countryside as something you had to drive through to get to the next town, the novelty had worn off for Doyle three hours ago, when they had taken up this duty shift.

"Have you spoken to Cowley yet?" he asked, without breaking his concentration.

"What about?" Bodie's diction was marred by the size of the mouthful of ham sandwich he had taken.

"Us wanting to share a flat. You haven't, have you." Doyle sounded no more than resigned.

"There's plenty of time," dismissed Bodie as he chewed with gusto.

"That's what you said a month ago. So when are you going to tell him? I'm fed up with being kicked out of bed in the middle of the night just to go back to my flat in case some faceless wonder is vetting us."

"We take it in turns," protested Bodie.

"On my insistence."

"There's no need to go on about it. I saw your point of view, didn't I? Don't glare at me like that, you'll sour the milk those cows are busy making. So I owe you a few nights. We'll use your flat again from tonight," promised Bodie, his tone placatory.

"We wouldn't need to if you'd speak to the Old Man."

"I will."

"OK, forget it," dismissed Doyle. "Maybe we're better leaving things as they are."

Undeceived by that casual tone, Bodie took the desperate measure of setting down his sandwich. "Look, I do want to shack up with you."

"But," prompted Doyle.

"But to do that we have to tell Cowley." Bodie's tone was patience personified.

"Well if that means I don't have to keep traipsing across London at two in the morning I'm all for putting an announcement in *The Times*. Let me tell him."

"No!" protested Bodie instinctively.

"Why not?" inquired Doyle with suspicion.

"Because you'll put his back up with your first sentence. With my subtlety and finesse we might just get away with it."

"So when will you tell him?"

"Soon," prevaricated Bodie.

"Knowing you, that means never."

"What d'you want, a deadline?" asked Bodie incautiously. He recognised his mistake far too late.

"Why didn't I think of that? As soon as we get off this bloody stakeout, all right?"

"I'll think about it," Bodie promised.

"I want us to live together, you want us to live together, and Cowley will probably be euphoric about us living together once he realises it will save him money on accommodation."

"Fine, Ray. There's just one problem. CI5 doesn't have that many two-bedroom flats floating around."

"What do we want two bedrooms for?"

Bodie gave him a patient look.

With the grace to look abashed, Doyle rubbed his nose. "I never thought of that. Maybe it would be best if I leave you to handle Cowley," he conceded in an untypical show of humility before he sighed and picked up the binoculars again.

In the next thirty minutes Bodie watched his companion's frown deepen, an unhappy droop to the sculptured mouth.

Beginning to understand the origin of the saying 'Kiss it better' Bodie looked round for some distraction. Finding none, he resorted to pouring them both some tea.

"Here, get this inside you. Look, I know you'd like everything out in the open," he said with resignation, "but you have to join the real world some time. It's not possible to come out to Cowley and keep our jobs. Whatever the Old Man might think privately, he won't be allowed to keep us on strength. Being a practising homosexual is illegal in the armed forces. It's probably treasonable in CI5. Only instead of your head, it's likely to be your balls that get nailed to the wall."

"You accept that?" The question was less a challenge than a query.

"Not much option, mate. Whitehall mandarins are always about thirty years behind the times. They haven't got over women starting to move up the career ladder in the Civil Service yet. Official acknowledgement of queers is definitely out - on second thoughts, 'out' isn't the word I wanted. If we don't stay in the closet we could find ourselves unemployed."

"Cupboard, we don't have closets in England."

"Then we'll have to start. Cupboard doesn't sound right. Anyway, we must have had closets at one point or Americans wouldn't say it."

"I suppose you know what you're wittering on about," said Doyle with resignation.

"What I'm leading up to is that we can tell Cowley if you want, but you'd better be prepared to be given the elbow out of the squad."

Doyle took a noisy slurp of tea. "Bugger, I always manage to burn my upper lip," he sniffed, when his eyes had stopped watering. "Would you be willing to put your job on the line about coming out?"

"Not bloody likely," said Bodie the pragmatist with scorn. "I've no interest in making political gestures. I just want to get on with living my life the way I want to live it."

Doyle opened his mouth.

"Save it, Ray. I haven't finished yet. I've started to realise that being queer in Britain you've got to be 'political' to some degree or another - or spend your entire life living a lie. Lying has never been a problem for me - I'm damn good at it - but this is different. I don't want to lie about us, like we're something to be ashamed of. So, I don't like it, but I'll put my job on the line for this. For you. Us."

There was a long silence, during which Doyle's eyes never left his partner's face.

"Christ, you would as well," he recognised in shaken tones, yet to comprehend fully his importance in Bodie's scheme of things.

"You mean you wouldn't?" mocked Bodie, for once more secure than his partner about their relationship.

"Of course I would. How does that help?" Doyle rubbed his chin. "I'm with you on not wanting to deny what we've got but I want it all. You and CI5," he admitted.

"Well, at least you got the order right," encouraged Bodie.

"Pillock," said Doyle affectionately. "I hate this shilly-shallying," he burst out, his frustration obvious. "If we keep quiet we either have to invent a sex life that will keep Cowley off our backs or we risk having him finding out the truth anyway. He might be a miserable old scrote but I wouldn't like him to find out like that."

"Me neither. I'd forgotten that." Bodie sounded pensive.

"So had I till just now. It needn't be a problem, I suppose. I mean, you are one of the most talented liars on the squad. And, for reasons best known to himself, Cowley seems to trust you. Or as much as he trusts anyone," Doyle added realistically.

Sliding down on his seat, Bodie hooked one arm over the steering wheel. Doyle was willing to swear he could hear a clanking sound as Bodie settled down to some serious contemplation. The silence lasted for a good three minutes.

"I think I've been spending too much time in your company," Bodie announced.

"How d'you mean?" Still glowing from Bodie's earlier matter of fact declaration, Doyle sounded singularly untroubled.

"I seem to be developing a moral streak. Or maybe it's only scruples. I've never been too sure what they're supposed to be," Bodie added in the manner of one making a confession. "Except that they always seem to mean you can't do what you really want to."

"Don't worry, I don't think the rot has set in too deep. What moral maze are you lost in?"

"Cheeky bugger."

"Mind! You almost had my tea over. You know our rule about no groping on duty."

"I know whose idea it was, too," groused Bodie, before he caught his companion's eye. "No, you were right. Seems a shame though. All this talking about sex is turning me on something chronic."

"But we haven't been - talking about sex, I mean."

"Maybe we haven't, but I've been thinking about it virtually non-stop and unless you've changed out of all recognition..."

"No," Doyle admitted gloomily. "It might help if we were actually doing a proper job. But treble-guarding a decoy just to keep an eye on some wanker from Special Branch isn't my idea of a good time."

"Surprised you didn't mention it to Cowley. You sure you don't fancy a quick fumble and grope now? The amount of condensation on the windows, no one will ever see anything."

"Don't you believe it," said Doyle authoritatively. "When I was on the beat I had to tell too many courting couples to pack it in to believe that old chestnut. Imagine trying to explain that to Cowley. Besides, I like my creature comforts."

"I'd noticed," grinned Bodie. "Though how you conned me into buying that sheepskin rug for you is one of life's little mysteries. Trust you to discover you're allergic to wool after I'd got it."

"Are you watching the house?" inquired Doyle.

"Of course," said Bodie with scorn.

Apart from the sound of Doyle noisily chewing gum and Bodie working his way down a packet of salt and vinegar crisps there was silence of a sort for almost five minutes.

"What was that moral dilemma that was worrying you?" asked Doyle. He opened the window for long enough to spit out his gum. Impervious to the sweet Spring scents, he rewound it, preferring the fug of the car to the morning chill, the sun yet to warm their vantage point.

"Cowley's always going on about how much it costs to train agents. And luckily we're good at our jobs. Maybe he'll overlook us being gay."

Doyle gave a hoot of laughter before he sobered. "We could try doing a deal," he conceded.

"What, we go straight alternate weeks?" said Bodie irrepressibly.

Caught unawares, Doyle swallowed a mouthful of tea the wrong way.

When all was quiet again Bodie wiped the windscreen dry with a resigned air.

"Can't take you anywhere," he sighed.

"You might be able to if we can con Cowley into agreeing to this deal."

"Oh god, you're not trying triple think again, are you?" said Bodie plaintively.

"Will you just shut up and keep your eyes on the farmhouse. No. We tell Cowley about us, so he knows unofficially but he doesn't enter it on our files. That way if we get caught out he's free to kick us off the squad. I know it means that hypocrisy rules, but we see so much of it that a bit more can't hurt."

"What if the Old Man won't go for it?"

Doyle wrinkled his nose, fidgeted with his watch strap and finally came clean. "Then I'd rather be gone anyway. There must be something else we can do to earn a living."

"Let not poor Raymond starve and all that. OK. At least we've got a head start."

"On what?"

"Trying to think what to do for a living," said Bodie realistically. "Hey up, it looks like they're on the move. There's Mac and Lucas."

"And Anson and Sally behind. Get on the blower to Cowley. I'll put the flask and stuff in the back."

"Oh bugger," breathed Bodie as he picked up his RT, which he had been tossing from hand to hand earlier.

Busy scrabbling round amongst the mess in the back, his head down and his backside in the air, Doyle heard little of the ensuing conversation. Righting himself in time to hear the strained note in Bodie's voice, Doyle gave him a curious look.

"What was all that in aid of?" he asked as Bodie set the RT down.

"All what?" said Bodie hoarsely.

"You interrogating Cowley about whether he was alone. I'm surprised he didn't blast you into orbit. You seemed to be having quite a conversation."

Bodie took an audible breath. "More a monologue. By Cowley. He's been listening to us over the RT since we had our tea. I must have caught the on/off switch when I was playing with it. What with thinking about us and sex and... I wouldn't have noticed a burst of the 1812 Overture, never mind the odd crackle." Knowing the fate which all too often befell the messenger, Bodie broke the news in a rush.

He had to repeat salient points twice before the full horror dawned on Doyle.

"Was Cowley alone?" Doyle asked.

"Yes, thank Christ."

"I might just do that. Did he say anything?"

"Before or after he stopped laughing? Well, not laughing exactly but I could tell he enjoyed having one over on us."

"You'd better tell me everything," said Doyle with resignation. "Bugger. I knew we should have told him before. Wish I could remember exactly what we've been saying," he added in a worried tone.

"You mean besides you calling him a mean old scrote?" inquired Bodie blandly.

"You're making that up?" Doyle sounded more hopeful than convinced.

"Afraid not, Sunshine. Don't panic." Bodie was visibly relaxing now he was over the first shock. "In fact it all worked out for the best really."

"You've got ten seconds to tell me exactly what Cowley said," warned Doyle, his patience expended.

"He told me that the fact we're lovers has been officially noted on our files for the last six and half months. And that if we keep our noses clean he'll back us to the hilt. Oh, and we can officially share a flat. One-bedroom because two-bedroom ones cost too much. Either of the flats we've got now, in fact."

"Blimey." Doyle simply sat, absorbing it all. "We've actually got everything we wanted. Including official recognition."

"Cowley official, not Whitehall," corrected Bodie.

"Who gives a bugger about Whitehall? Cowley's the one who matters."

The crackle of the RT made both men jump.

"Tell me he's not still fucking well listening," begged a harried-looking Doyle, his eyes huge with anguish.

Bodie was too busy to enjoy the rare sight of a highly embarrassed Ray Doyle.

"If you want privacy I suggest you remember to activate the off switch on the RT," said Cowley dryly, his voice all too familiar despite the usual distortion. "MI5 have just confirmed that the Foreign Secretary is back in Whitehall. M16 are escorting the other parties to their various destinations. The decoys - including those you have been guarding so assiduously - have been a great success. Consider yourselves off duty until the end of the week."

"Sir," acknowledged Doyle, still stiff with outraged dignity.

His mood was not improved by Cowley's unfeeling chuckle. "Don't get on your high horse with me, 4.5. Or are you going to pretend that in my place you wouldn't have listened in?"

"No," admitted Doyle in a goaded tone. "But that doesn't mean I have to pretend to - "

Bodie relieved him of the RT. "Thank you, sir. See you next week."

"It seems inevitable," Cowley agreed. "Now switch off your RT."

Doing so with great care, Bodie tucked the RT in the First Aid box, which lay under a pile of junk in the back of the Land Rover they had been allocated. Then he got out to put the box in the rear and re-covered it.

"Paranoid?" queried Doyle over Bodie's shoulder. Palming his partner's corduroy-clad bottom, he gave it a friendly two-handed squeeze.

"And then some," Bodie admitted. "There must be a faulty connection somewhere. I wouldn't get it wrong twice."

"Knowing Cowley, he's probably had them all jury-rigged so he can keep an eye on us."

"Shouldn't that be ear?" inquired Bodie, after a pause for thought.

He received a thump on the arm.

"Don't get smart with me. I've had a very traumatic day. Hang on. We haven't been together six and a half months," realised Doyle, who had been counting back on his fingers. "I've a bloody good mind to ring Cowley and get our files amended."

Patience personified, Bodie looked at his other half. "Ray?"

"What?"

"Get a grip on reality, will you. Face facts. We were lovers, we just hadn't got round to doing anything about it. Cowley, the cunning old bugger, will always have a head start on us."

"Yeah." Doyle's expression was frankly sulky as he leant against the side of the Land Rover, moodily scuffing a tuft of grass. Then he looked up. "Unless we let him know this stuff with him eavesdropping was a bit of triple thinking on our part."

Bodie didn't even have to think about it. "No, Ray. Trying to triple think Cowley sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Besides, this way he can feel superior."

"While I feel like an idiot."

"You should be used to it by now."

"Whose side are you on?"

"Ours. The sun's coming out, we've just been paid and we've got almost five days off."

"There is that," Doyle conceded, his expression brightening. "What do you want to do then?"

Bodie made no attempt to rush into speech.

They were parked in an copse of alders, willow and hazel trees which overlooked the Manor house. The nearest road was over three hundred yards away down a track so steep and potholed that it required four-wheel drive. They knew the house was now deserted. Short of low-flying aircraft there was no way they could be overlooked. And Doyle was standing there looking like Bodie's every fantasy made flesh.

"Speaking of head," said Bodie, advancing purposefully.

"What?" All large-eyed incomprehension and parted mouth, Doyle never had a chance.

The next time he made a sound his hands were cupping Bodie's face and his jeans and briefs were around his still-booted ankles.

Bodie's tongue circled, then lapped at the head of Doyle's cock. When Bodie began to swallow, taking him in, Doyle moved convulsively, his head going back. His world narrowed to the incredible sensations Bodie was producing. He was so sensitive and so desperate with need that he lost himself totally, urging Bodie on with soft incoherencies, his hands virtually clamping the other man's head in place. He came like a sky rocket, orgasm exploding like glittering particles behind his eyes.

Slumped against the side of the Land Rover, quivering with the intensity of his coming, Doyle slowly became aware of his surroundings: gritty metal cold against his arse, his legs hobbled by briefs and jeans, and the sun on his cock, which felt cool after the haven of Bodie's mouth.

Bodie.

Doyle refocused to stare at the man kneeling in front of him. His fingertips brushed Bodie's cropped hair, circling over the tender skin of the pale-skinned forehead.

"Christ, I love you," he murmured.

Bodie looked up. Eyes soft with love, his face was more open than Doyle had ever seen it.

With an incoherent murmur, Doyle sank down beside him to hold him in a tight embrace.

Later, when they were both fully naked and he could wait no longer, Doyle laid Bodie on the sweet-scented rough grass and, the sun warm on his back, bent to his love.

-- THE END --

Written 28th February 1996
Originally published in Alter Egos 1, Doghouse Press, 1996
Reprinted in HG Collected 2, Doghouse Press, 2002