I knew I shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't continue to give him the satisfaction of learning how curious I was, but I never could leave well enough alone. Famous for picking at scabs, I am, and the more painful they are the better.

"Well?" I said, getting into the car and eyeing the smug look he turned upon me in greeting with a carefully hidden ache.

"Well what?" he enquired, swinging the Capri away from the kerb with a typical flourish and squeal of rear tyres, disconcerting two pedestrians and missing an oncoming car by a whisker. The driver leaned on his horn and stuck an expressive two fingers out of his side window. Bodie ignored both sound and gesture with the ease of long practice.

I ground my teeth together and debated silently about saying, "Well, at least the rain's kept off." Just to see his reaction, but I couldn't do it. The rotten sod had me well and truly hooked, and he knew it and was milking the situation for all he was worth. He knew exactly what I had meant by that "Well?" but, as on every other day for the past fortnight, he was going to make me come right out with it.

For the umpteenth time I wished two things: one, that my bump of curiosity wasn't so well developed; and two, that I wasn't so bloody jealous. One or the other was bad enough. The two together were murder!

"Well," I said, keeping my voice even with the kind of effort that didn't go unnoticed, unfortunately, "how is the lovely Sally this morning? Come up to scratch again last night, did she?"

Bodie sniggered. "That's good, that is. 'Come up to scratch'. Oh yeah, she did that all right. Got sharp little claws, Sally has, likes to sink 'em in when she gets excited."

He bestowed a sidelong, heavy-lidded glance on me and flexed his shoulders. Combined with the filthy snigger, the vision the gesture conjured up only increased my growing urge to throttle the absent Sally. Always supposing I ever got to meet her.

Bodie was playing this one very close to his chest. He wasn't usually so secretive about his girl friends, but the mysterious Sally had been different from the beginning and that was what worried me about her. It was two weeks since she had come into his life, and he was keeping her under wraps as though she was an incognito or Royal something, too precious to be exposed to my uncouth presence. Talked about her a lot, he did - too bloody much for my peace of mind, if you must know! - but I had yet to catch even a fleeting glimpse of her.

"Mark you, did she?" I enquired, all fake solicitation and trying to sound nonchalant, but failing. Visions of them locked together in passion, her long nails raking across Bodie's broad shoulders and down his back, leaving red tracks on that smooth white skin burned before my eyes.

"A bit. My own fault, I suppose. Shouldn't have got her so worked up."

I bit my lip and stared unseeingly out of the window, thinking that I couldn't really take much more of this. Something was going to break - and soon!

How much easier life had been when I had thought all I felt for him was friendship, the closeness of one partner for another. Ours is a crazy, dangerous line of work; you have to like and respect, trust and care for each other, otherwise you're dead. Exactly when that liking, etc., had turned into loving and physically wanting on my part I have no idea. I know when I discovered it had, though: when Rahad's car knocked him flying, and he just lay there having me and Cowley on. When he opened his eyes and grinned and said, "I never knew you cared!" I suddenly realised just how much I did.

Even then, though, things weren't too difficult. I mean, of course I had to hide from him how I really felt. Someone as macho as Bodie...he'd either have run a mile or killed me if he'd known about the fantasies of screwing him within an inch of his life I was having in my lonely bed. As for all the other loving, mushy thoughts...! Well, he would probably have been sick all over me if he'd known about those. Made myself feel a bit queasy at times, I was so silly! I've never felt like that about anyone before, not even Ann, and I was all set to marry her!

So it wasn't too hard to keep up the old familiar faade and pretend he was nothing more than my best mate. I was too scared of losing what I already had to take a chance of getting more. I know it was cowardly. Probably deserves a place in the Guinness Book of Records, my cowardice does, but that's the way it was.

Until bloody Sally put in an appearance.

He first mentioned her two weeks ago, a casual reference when we were tidying up some loose ends in a report. I hadn't really been listening to him burble on, being more interested in finishing the paperwork and getting home to something to eat, not having been even close to food since breakfast.

"...on my doorstep last night. Looked really miserable, she did."

"Who?" I asked, belatedly tuning in to the end of what he'd been saying.

"You haven't been listening."

"Yes, I have," I denied, too tired and fed-up and hungry to want him to start at the beginning again. "You'd got this miserable bird on your doorstep. One of your neighbours, was she? And why was she miserable?"

"Not a neighbour - "

I raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Ah c'mon, Adonis! You trying to make me believe the birds are coming in off the streets now and breaking your door down just to get at your body? Pull the other one."

"And what makes you think they wouldn't?" he protested. "I've got a magnificent body."

He could say that again! Just in time I stopped myself from saying so aloud.

"'s not bad, I suppose, although I've seen better," I told him dismissively. "She certainly couldn't have been after your brains. I'm the clever clogs in this twosome; everyone knows that. So, why was she miserable, and what did she want? Here..." A sudden thought struck me and I grinned at him devilishly. "You haven't been a naughty lad, have you? She isn't expecting -?"

"No, I ruddy haven't, and she isn't!" He snorted and glowered at me. I chuckled, and a slowly rising speculative eyebrow replaced the glower. "Would you believe she was homeless, and hungry?"

I stared at him. He sounded perfectly serious, but that was no guarantee about anything. I had been the victim of Bodie put-ons before. For the moment I decided to play along.

"So I suppose, being the good little Samaritan you are, you were conned out of some hard-earned cash?"

"Nope. Being the good little Samaritan I am, I took her in, fed her, and let her have the bed in the spare room for the night."

I gaped at him, jaw dropping. I know Bodie can be the softest touch in Christendom at times, especially for such a self-professed hard man, but this was going it a bit.

"You what?"

"You heard me."

"I heard what you said, I just don't believe it! You're having me on, right?"

"I am not having you on," he denied. "When I left this morning she was curled up in bed, still sleeping the sleep of the just." He stared back at me, perfectly composed, and suddenly I believed every word of it.

"You," I said, appalled, "are stark, staring, certifiably crazy, you know that? You'll go home and find she's cleared you out. Either that or she'll have brought in half a dozen friends. Cowley will go bananas when he hears about this. That's a CI5 flat, mate, and you take in some slag off the streets - "

"She isn't a slag," he interrupted, his eyes developing a faraway, gazing-at-something-else-entirely expression. "She's young and very pretty. No, I think beautiful would be a better word to describe her. Big green eyes, black hair as soft as silk, a slim sinuous body... Moves like a dancer, she does, all smooth grace. She's got breeding, anyone can see it."

My stomach clenched, and my breath caught in an emotion I didn't identify until a couple of days later. "Oh yeah?" I demanded. "So what was this walking wet-dream doing on the streets, then?"

"The bastard she lived with threw her out," he said, anger sparkling in his eyes, returning him to the here-and-now. "No reason, just decided out of the blue that he didn't want her around any more. She couldn't find another place to live, had to resort to sleeping rough, begging; stealing too, I suspect. Can't have been much good at it; she fairly wolfed down the meal I gave her and she was pathetically grateful for the spare room."

"Tell you all this, did she, over the frozen pizza or whatever?"

He sniffed, eloquently. "Nice bit of chicken, actually; lucky I had it in. Not in so many words, no. Had to read between the lines a lot, but it wasn't difficult." He shuffled the papers of the report together and stood up, glancing at his watch. "Is that the time? I'll just sling this in to Betty, then I'd best be off home. I didn't intend staying away so long. She'll be wondering where I am."

"If she's still there," I said sourly. "I'll come along, shall I? Help prop you up when you find the flat has been turned over. Or if miracles really do happen and she hasn't done a bunk with the silver, I think I'd like to meet Wonder Woman."

"Oh no, I don't think that would be such a good idea." Bodie shook his head. "We don't want you upsetting her, do we? She's a bit uptight at the moment, needs very careful handling."

It was my turn to glower at him. "I'll have you know, mate, "I said sharply, "that I am not renowned for upsetting birds, however uptight they happen to be."

"Maybe not," he agreed. "But Sally isn't your average bird. She's ...special."

Sally.

That was the first time I heard her name. It was not the last.

For the next two weeks it was Sally this, and Sally that. Every time he opened his mouth, something about bloody Sally emerged.

Sally, it appeared, was the best thing since sliced bread.

Sally was beautiful.

Sally was clever, yet sexy. But ladylike with it.

Sally was warm and loving, and adored Bodie from the top of his smooth, dark head to the soles of his size 8 feet. She shared his flat and his board and, from the second night after he first told me about her, his bed too.

It was obvious he was as crazy about her as she seemed to be about him. And I hated her guts.

I finally named the strange emotion I had been feeling every time her name came up: jealousy. Bone-marrow deep jealousy.

Ever since I had known him Bodie and birds had been synonymous. Since I'd realised how I felt about him he had gone out with several, not one of whom had been important to him. A date or two and they were gone, and he was on to pastures new. But I was still there, I was important, I was the one person he always wanted and needed to have around. He might not love me the way I loved him, but he needed me, and if that was all I could have then I was content to let it be enough. I'd had no reason to be jealous of any of his birds.

Sally was different.

Sally was all he seemed to need or want now.

Sally was dangerous!

Sally had pushed me out of his life. There was none of the old, "Let's go for a drink, Doyle." or "There's a match on the telly, why don't we go round my place, sunshine?" I had tried issuing invitations, but the answer was always the same. "Better not. I think Sally worries about me, you see."

The only time I ever seemed to see him now, or get to talk to him, was when we were at work. It wasn't enough. The terrorists and general-purpose bad guys appeared to be taking a holiday; the corridors of CI5 were very quiet. We'd report for duty, hang around the VIP lounge on stand-by for a few hours, and then get sent home until next day. Bodie ought to have been chewing the furniture. Instead, he'd look delighted, give me one of his guess-what-I'm-going-to-get-up-to grins, and mutter something along the lines of, "Got to get back to Sally. See you, mate." before taking off like the proverbial bat out of hell.

I couldn't stand it!

I was rapidly getting to the point where I couldn't decide which of them I wanted to kill the most: Sally for simply existing; or Bodie for being too blind to see how I felt about him, and for the fact that he wouldn't want my love even if he could see it.

I had even taken to driving past the block of flats he was currently living in, in the hope - or more probably the dread - of catching a glimpse of the mysterious paragon who had apparently captured his heart and soul.

How's that for grown-up behaviour?

Pathetic, innit?

And being me, I exacerbated the wound in other ways too. On the rare occasions when he didn't mention her name I did, probing for information about her, about how they spent all that time together. I got it, in abundance. Among other things, how she liked to cuddle up to him when they were watching telly; how she'd perch on the edge of the bath and watch him shower, but refuse to share with him however much he tried to persuade her; how she woke him up in the morning by nuzzling in his ear...

I was more miserable than I had ever been in my entire life, and people were beginning to notice. With, it appeared, one notable exception.

"...wouldn't believe some of the positions she can get her body into. I've never seen anything like it," Bodie said, his voice at last bringing me back down to earth with a bump. I wasn't looking at him, but I could feel his eyes on me, one of his quick assessing glances. "You're not listening again, mate. Bad habit, that is. Could learn something here, you could, if you listened properly."

Had been listening for the past two weeks. Was fed-up to the eyeteeth with listening, and I had learned more than enough already, thank you very much!

I said so, unwarily, and with too much emphasis.

"You did ask," he said, with inescapable truth.

"Doesn't mean you have to tell me in such disgusting detail!" I snarled, nerve endings finally fraying irretrievably past the point of no return.

"Disgusting? I thought it was rather interesting myself." There was a slight pause before he added, on a note of enquiry, "Wouldn't happen to be jealous by any chance, would you?"

"Don't be stupid!"

"You are!" he said. "That's what it is. You're jealous because I've got Sally - "

The 'something' that had been threatening to break got around to it at last. I actually felt it snap, like a physical thing.

"Because she's got you!" I yelled.

And immediately froze.

Oh, Christ! I'd done it now! Got a big mouth, I have, with a nasty habit of going to work before my brain gets in gear.

I shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to see the shock on his face, and concentrated on trying to vanish into thin air. The car slowed and came to a halt, and I sensed him turning in his seat to face me.

"What did you say?"

No use denying it. Sudden attacks of deafness have never been one of Bodie's problems. "You heard."

"I know what I thought I heard. Seems I was right. Why?"

There was an odd inflection in his voice, but I was incapable of trying to consider it. The rotten sod was going to make me admit to everything, but it was already too late to turn back anyway. I might as well let him have his pound of flesh. Get the truth out of my system, and then get myself out of his and Sally's lives. Those thoughts of resigning I'd had last night were suddenly looking very attractive.

"Why? Because," I said miserably, "I bloody love you. I'm in love with you, have been for ages. Been too scared to let you know because I knew you'd go spare. Then this Sally bird came along and...I...I can see she really matters to you, Bodie. She's not like all the others. It sticks out a mile just how much you love her. And I just can't take it! Can't help myself. I want you so much..." I swallowed a quick breath and went on hastily, wanting to reassure him, "But you needn't worry, I know you couldn't want me that way, so I'm not going to hang around embarrassing you - "

"Bloody stupid berk!"

The exclamation stopped me cold and my eyes shot open as a band of pain tightened around my chest. Oh God, he was taking this even worse than I'd feared...

His hand reached out and grasped my shoulder, squeezing it gently. "I don't mean you, sunshine - I mean me! Don't look at me like that. Please! This is all my fault, and I'm sorry. So sorry! I thought I was being clever...covering my own tail...but it appears all I've done is hurt you. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry."

I stared at him, totally bemused. The corners of his mouth twitched, stretching into one of those singularly sweet smiles that he bestows so very rarely because they reveal too much of the real Bodie lurking behind that hard, don't-give-a-damn exterior.

"I really didn't mean to hurt you, Ray, honestly. You got hold of the wrong end of the stick about Sally and me right at the beginning and I thought I'd lead you on a bit. Try one more time to get you to admit if you felt something more than friendship for me. Been trying to do that for a long time, because I've been too terrified to tell you how I feel about you. Couldn't take the risk of driving you away if you didn't feel anything for me. This was going to be my last attempt; pull out all the stops, give it everything I'd got, and if it didn't work I'd know I was wrong and I'd just jack it in and leave." He smiled at me shakily. "Seems you're not the only one suffering from terminal cowardice around here, mate."

"Let me get this straight," I said carefully. "You mean to tell me that you put me through what I've gone through for the past fortnight just because you were too chicken to speak first?"

"Something like that," he said, and had the good grace to look thoroughly ashamed of himself.

The pain in my chest had gone. In its place was a rapidly expanding bubble of sheer joy, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry or thump him - or possible all three.

"You great pillock!" I told him, trying to sound severe and failing utterly, only stopping myself from grinning like an idiot with extreme difficulty.

"You're a fine one to talk."

"I know." The idiotic grin finally broke through. "Two stupid berks together, aren't we?" He nodded solemn agreement, but the warmth and love in his blue eyes made my toes curl. I dropped my head to one side and rubbed my cheek against the hand still gripping my shoulder. "Oh God, Bodie! If we weren't in a public place..."

He released me and got out of the car and walked around and opened the passenger door. "Be private enough inside for whatever ideas you've got floating around under that curly mop. I've got one or two of my own, if you must know."

"Only one or two?" I asked, before our familiar but unexpected surroundings registered. Instead of the CI5 car park, which is where I'd automatically assumed we were when the car had stopped, we were parked in the street outside Bodie's block of flats. "What are we doing here? I thought we were going to HQ?"

"We were, but I forgot that book about guns I promised to lend Jax. Lucky I decided to come back for it, isn't it? C'mon."

Half way along the hallway to his front door I suddenly remembered something temporarily driven out of my mind by the discovery that Bodie loved me. "Hang on a minute! What about Sally? Isn't she here? And what did you mean, I'd got hold of the wrong end of the stick about you and her?" I eyed him suspiciously.

"'Course she's here, where else would she be? And you'll find out what I meant in a minute. It's long past time you two met anyway. I've been telling her all about you, y'know."

He unlocked the door and ushered me through with a flourish and one of his ultra-bland looks, but there was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made me decidedly wary.

The latest female in his life, the one I'd spent two weeks getting my underwear in an uproar about, came to meet us. She was everything he had ever said she was - and more.

She was also completely unfazed when we eventually got around to trying out a few of those ideas we'd had. That, however, was not until some time later; mainly because Bodie was busy falling about having hysterics, and I was exercising my knowledge of the more colourful epithets in the English language. I may even have invented a few new ones, because I didn't repeat myself once.

I know I've been dim-witted about some things in the past, and doubtless I shall be equally slow on the uptake in the future, but I am absolutely certain I shall never feel as thick as I did at that moment.

But... I mean... How the hell was I supposed to have known Sally was a bloody CAT?

-- THE END --