Game Players
by elfin

NC-17


"Nice day for it," Dalziel grouched, pulling his long black winter coat tighter around him as he clambered over the uneven ground.

A couple of steps ahead Wieldy wasn't finding the going much easier.  Who ever had dragged their victim up here was a more determined man than him.

"Why didn't he just dump the body at the bottom and be done with it?"

Wieldy couldn't offer a useful answer so he didn't offer any.

Finally they breached the brow of the hill and stopped at the edge of the taped-off crime scene.  He looked around the site.

“Where’s Peter?  Lazy bugger.”

His newly promoted chief inspector might not yet have put in an appearance but Mason was already there, dressed in white, crouched over the body.

“Aren’t you cold?” Andy called out.  The long-suffering pathologist, as usual, ignored him.

Wieldy lifted the loosely taped perimeter and Andy ducked under it.  He was keen to get this over with and get back into the warm, let his subordinates do all the leg work while he sat and reviewed the evidence over a hot mug of coffee. 

“What’ve we got, doc?”

Mason stood and both men got their first glance at the body.  Andy started, taking an instinctive step forward before he realised what he was doing.  It wasn’t Peter – of course it wasn’t – but the way he was lying on his front, the back of his head and the way his hair was cut, the colour of it, even the line of his neck and shoulders… it looked like Peter.

Mason was talking and Wieldy was obviously paying more attention than Andy was.  He pulled himself together and waited for the pathologist to shut up before hedging his bets and asking the obvious question, “Cause of death?”

“Well, I would guess at suffocation but with what I won’t know until I get him back to the lab.”

Andy moved around the body carefully and crouched down to look at the face, just to be certain.  His features were nothing like Peter’s.  The eyes were closer together, the mouth smaller, the cheekbones lower.

“Could it be the same MO?”

Mason looked down.  “Yes.  Same dump – naked, legs apart, clear evidence of a rather brutal rape.  It means that, like the first one, it’ll probably be object rape and therefore no semen but we can hope for some elsewhere on the body.  He’s been treated worse than the first one, I would say.  The bruises look worse and there’re more of them.  I’ll get my report to you as soon as I can.”

Straightening, Andy nodded.  “Thanks.”

He moved away to join Wieldy who was being briefed by Lateef – first of them on the scene.  As he walked, he pulled his mobile out from his jacket pocket but there was no signal, just as he’d suspected.  Muttering to himself about the state of so-called ‘new technology’ he dropped it back.

”No witnesses then?” he asked as soon as he was within earshot.

“None, Sir,” Wield confirmed.  “Except the man who found him.  Eric Whitcome, was walking his dog.  He lives in Balach.”

“Walkin’ ‘is dog?  It’s eight in the mornin’ and it’s minus twenty!  Bits could start fallin’ off if yer stayed out ‘ere too long!”

“He’s sixty-four,” the eager constable countered by way of some strange explanation.  “He says his morning walks are what have kept him so young.”

Dalziel glanced at Wield, corner of his mouth turned up.  “Is that what they call a ‘sound bite’ in the media?”

Wieldy smirked and Andy rolled his eyes.  “All right, Sunshine,” he addressed Lateef, “you take Inspector Wield here and introduce ‘im to yon young pensioner.”  He pointed a warning finger at Wield, “And just you remember you’re spoken for.”

Wieldy smiled broadly, biting his bottom lip.  “I’ll try to behave, Sir.”

“Aye.  I’m off back to the station for a coffee.  I’ll buy yer both lunch if yer come back with the name of our killer.”


Lateef led Wield over to where he’d parked.  “Don’t you mind, Sir?” he started as they got close to the Rover.

“Mind what?”

“The boss talkin’ about your… personal life like that?”

Wield smiled his own patented smile.  “Would you mind if he jokingly warned you to keep your hands off a randy old woman?”

Lateef considered that.  “No, don’t suppose I would.”

“It’s no different.  Dalziel doesn’t like prejudice, it’s one of his pet hatreds.”

“You could have fooled me.”  But there wasn’t too much venom in it.

~

The canteen had become a minefield since he’d started his health regime.  He’d never deny the diet and brushes with skin treatments and aromatherapy had been worth it.  Andy felt great and according to an expert, if somewhat biased opinion, he looked it too. 

The fags hadn’t been cut out completely but he was down to five a day.

So he rarely went down to the canteen now, with its tempting aromas of frying eggs, sausages and bacon.  He tended to drink the posh coffees Peter brought in from the O’Briens coffee shop across the road.  But today he needed a caffeine hit and he couldn’t be bothered to cross to the Irish franchise.

“Morning, Andy,” Gwyn greeted him.  “We don’t see much of you any more.”

Andy gave her a wide, winning smile as he got two coffees from the new, automatic machine, pressing ‘Americano’ for himself and ‘Latte’ for Peter.

“There’s less of me to see,” he told her, patting his considerably slimmer stomach now it no longer hung over his belt.

“Indeed.”  She nodded appreciatively.  “You look good.”  She took the money he handed her.  “And how’s that lovely inspector of yours?”

Andy winked.  “Chief Inspector now.  But still lovely.”

“Glad to ‘ear it.  Shame about him and his wife.”  Dalziel didn’t say anything.  Ellie had thrown Peter out over nine years back.

All he said was, “Thanks, Gwyn.”


He’d never understood how Peter’s office always looked so incredibly tidy and organised when he knew from personal experience just what a messy bugger the man actually was.

He put the coffee on the desk, casting a curious eye over the neat piles of ordered paperwork.  A couple of car brochures peeked out from underneath it all.  Almost a year since his accident and Peter was only just driving again.  He was still trying to decide what car to get and for now was driving a pool Audi or his boss’ Jag whenever he could get his hands on the keys.

Whenever Andy thought back to that harrowing night and those terrible few days watching Peter fighting for his life in hospital his blood ran cold and he had to remind himself that it was over.  Peter was alive.  Peter was fine.  There had been bad times in long months during which he’d been recovering, but there had been good times too.

So much had changed but it was hard to be glad of such a traumatic catalyst.

Leaving the latte where it stood, Andy went to his own office to survey the mess of paper and reports on his own desk.  Deciding it was about time he did something about it all, he sat down to tidy and to wait for the others to get back with some leads.

~

Dalziel looked at the transparent displays behind him to which the photo of their first victim had been tacked.

“Craig Cliffe,” he needlessly reminded the assembled officers.  “Thirty years old, self-employed electrician.”

He’d been found four days ago in a graveyard in Ansy, a small village just outside Wetherton.  He’d been dumped, naked, after being beaten and sexually assaulted.

“Cause of death, strangulation.”  With what Mason had described as ‘a long string of small balls or beads, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter.’

“Is this morning’s death the same MO, Sir?”

Dalziel picked PC ‘Janet’ Jackson out of the crowd.  “It looks that way, Janet, but I always like to wait for the pathology report before I go leaping to any conclusions regarding serial killers, and you’d be well advised to do the same.  By the way, don’t go callin’ it ‘this morning’s death’, we’ve got no evidence as yet to say he did die this mornin’.  It confuses people if you don’t call it what it is.”

She bowed her head sheepishly.  “Sorry, Sir.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he chided, upbeat.  “If yer don’t ask questions you won’t ever get the benefit of my considerable experience.  Now then, get out to the nearby villages, see if you can find anyone who saw anything, or better still if you can find a car – although I doubt he drove ‘imself up there.  Obviously, once we know who he is….”

Wieldy interrupted him, stepping into the breach right on time.  “Sir, we’ve identified him.  Ashley Peek, a lecturer from Leeds University.”

Andy nodded.  “Right.  Find Peter and get yerselves over there.  Okay, you ‘eard the inspector.  Ashley Peek, lecturer.  I want anything we have on him, everything anyone else has on him and all possible connections to Craig Cliffe, plausible or otherwise.”

“Sir?”  Lateef was easy to pick out.  He always sat at the front during briefings.

“And what conclusion would you like to leap to, Parvez?”

“I was just thinkin’, Sir… this morning I thought the man looked a lot like the first victim, Cliffe.” 

Dalziel nodded.  “Mebbe that’s the connection.  Only things we should be rulin’ out at this stage are the mad theories.”

Lateef continued, “I also thought ‘e looked a bit like DCI Pascoe, Sir.” 

The rest of the room fell unusually silent.

“And?” but it didn’t sound anything like encouragement.

“Well… if we needed to use an agent provocateur at any stage….”  He wisely stopped talking.

“I don’t expect to hear words like those from anyone but my overeducated chief inspector.  And none of you, including ‘im, are gettin’ up to anythin’ French or mucky on my time!  Got that?”

Lateef nodded.  He suspected he’d got off lightly.

“Any other questions or daft observations?”  No one even breathed.  “Good.  Go.”

~

Dalziel had been sitting at his desk considering lunch when a phone call had ousted him from the sanctuary of his office and brought him down to the pathology lab at Wetherton General Hospital. 

Now he’d lost his appetite.

“…from the look of the bruises I would hazard a guess that before, during or after the assault – or maybe all three – he was severely beaten with the dildo used to rape him.”

Andy rubbed his forehead.  “What about cause of death?”

“That’s the one that’s going to put you off your supper too.”  Mason pulled back the plastic sheet from the victim’s head, revealing his face and neck.  “I found bruises around his throat, under his chin and around his mouth.  The bruises around his throat look like he was held in a kind of vice-like grip, possibly between someone’s knees.  The shapes are right and so is the depth of the injury.  It occurred before and wasn’t the cause of his death.

“What I did find were traces of latex in his mouth and two pubic hairs in his teeth.  I think his killer sat on his shoulders while he lay on the floor and forced his penis into our victim’s mouth and down his throat, choking him.”

Dalziel had seen so much horror in his work.  He was always glad of the faint nausea he felt when he heard about the terrible things one human being had subjected another to.  He’d made a rule that when he stopped feeling the repulsion it was time to quit.

But this… this had a more personal twist to it that made him ridiculously uncomfortable as well as sickened.

He took a deep breath.  “Where?”

“Well, not where you found him.  He had minor lacerations on his chest, face, arms and legs which happened after death.  If he’d been killed in that manner on the ground where he was discovered there’d have been more soil and grass in his hair, along his back and shoulders.”  Mason shook his head.  “No, wherever it happened, I would say his body was moved.”

“Me too.  Yer need privacy for sommat like that anyhow.  Yer not goin’a risk being seen by dog walkers and tourists who can’t sleep.  What I don’t get is how he was moved.  It wasn’t easy gettin’ up there and I wasn’t carryin’ a body.”

“That’s because you went the wrong way.  If you’d ‘ave gone up the Avemoor Road yer could ‘ave parked a minute’s stroll from the site.  Like yer young DC.  He parked next to me.”

It at least gave Andy somewhere to start looking for witnesses.  The Avemoor Road ran out of Wetherton and up through the moors to York, through the small towns of Balach and Cragmore. 

Balach was a beautiful place, full of natural beauty as well as being a flourishing market town.  So it tended to draw locals and tourists alike, often earlier in the morning due to the scarce parking and the military-like organisation of the district council’s traffic wardens.


Back at the station he found Lateef and gave him something to do – to get out there and find him a witness.

~

It was a long day.

At eight he told the team to pack it in and go home for the night, to come back refreshed in the morning.  Having them working round the clock rarely helped anyone at this stage in an investigation, when they had so little to go on.

He hadn’t heard from Wieldy or Peter but there’d been an accident on the A1(M), a lorry had turned over and covered the road surface with frozen fish fingers, or something equally as daft.  No one hurt but by five there had been a twenty-mile tailback. 

If Wieldy had anything to report of any matter he’d have called.  Dalziel would talk to him in the morning.

Unfortunately it meant Peter too was stuck in the traffic.  Andy fancied a pint but he wasn’t warming to the idea of going to the Bull without at least one of his cohorts.

Strolling into the incident room, the man who was king of all he surveyed, Dalziel looked around at the empty chairs and desks.  He smiled to himself.  A couple of years ago he’d been ready to give it all up, to call it a day.  He’d been shot, spent six weeks hooked up to machines in hospital then another six weeks recuperating in a cold, quiet house.  Returning to work he’d found Peter on the verge of a breakdown, working twenty hour days before heading to a B&B to lie awake on cheap bedding and stare at an impersonal ceiling.

Moving Peter in with him had been his only choice – the first move down a rocky slope.  Moving him out hadn’t been a choice.  It had been a necessity.

For a time their friendship had buckled under the strain of Peter going through a messy divorce and blaming everything on Andy.

And then the accident.  Peter insisted it had been an accident, as much as Dalziel wanted to find out who had been in the control room that night, who had given him the wrong information so that instead of coming up behind the chase car he’d come face to face with a speeding 4x4.  And then a concrete pillar.

For two days Andy had sat at his friend’s bedside and waited, waited for him to open his eyes or for the soft beeping of the monitors to become a single, unbroken sound. 

He hadn’t slept.  He hadn’t worked.  He’d put Wieldy in charge of the investigation into the body parts in the lake, an investigation that had finally won him his promotion to inspector.  Apparently Barry Jemmerson had some very influential friends and Wieldy had unexpectedly charmed and impressed him.

Andy couldn’t have cared less about the killing.

When they’d wheeled Peter out for the emergency operation to remove the subdural hematoma, Andy had honestly thought that was where their story would end.  McKenzie had been telling him for twenty-four hours that Peter just wasn’t well enough to survive the surgery.  He was too weak, his system too stressed.  The invasive procedure would be too much.

But in the end leaving Peter to die was the only alternative and so they’d taken him down and the man who’d later killed a nurse to shut her up had opened up Peter’s head and removed the blood clot.

Andy had been waiting when they’d brought Peter up from recovery.  He’d looked in a worse state than before.  Lost under wires and tubes, surrounded by life support, left to fight an unimaginable fight… Andy could remember stepping out into the corridor and weeping.

The forty-eight hours that had followed had been the worst of Andy’s life.  But slowly Peter had started to once again breathe on his own.  And three hours after the removal of the respirator had come the moment Andy would never forget.  Peter had woken up, looked over at him and let out a sound like a whimper.  But Andy knew it had been a scream.  However terrible the noise, the recognition in his eyes had been an incredible sight and once the nurses had explained what was going on, that he was going to be all right, Peter had slept in safety, fingers curled around Andy’s hand.


Dalziel studied the photos of the victims and the scenes connected with this double murder.  He looked first into the smiling face of Ashley Peek and then into the frowning expression of Craig Cliffe.  People looked so different in death.

He thought about what Lateef had said earlier on, about there being a faint resemblance between them.  Them, and Peter.  He remembered the moment he’d laid eyes on Ashley Peek’s body on the moor that morning and had imagined – just for an instant – that it was Peter.

It brought back Lateef’s suggestion – or more his hint at one – that they use his chief inspector as an agent provocateur.  It was a practice frowned upon in the force at the best of times but no one was using Peter as bait for anything, particularly not to lure a man who choked his victims on his own dick.

Turning away, he left for the night, leaving the lights on as was tradition while a case was still active.

~

“This is Inspector Wield.  Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

(beep)

“Inspector?  This is Dan Marshall, from Leeds University.  I thought I’d better let you know, we’ve found Dr Peek’s car in the university car park, close to the science block where he has – had – his office. It’s still locked but I don’t know if you found his keys when you searched his rooms.  I hope it’s not too presumptuous but I’ve seen some TV shows and… well, I’ve collected the CCTV tapes for you from that night – the car park and the corridor outside his office.

“Could you give me a ring on 07890 65411?  I’d bring them over to you but I suspect you might want to take a look at Ashley’s car.

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

~

Dalziel was in early, stopping at the O’Briens shop opposite and buying two regular coffees.  He hoped Peter was in.  It had taken police and expert cleaners most of the night to sort out the mess on the A1(M).  People had been stuck with their cars for hours and hours.  Even with an emergency blue light and a badge Andy reckoned their only alternative would have been to call for helicopter back up and neither of them would have done.

But although there were people in, members of the investigation team, Peter’s office was as quiet as it had been the previous day.

The coffee Andy had brought from the canteen yesterday was still sitting untouched on his desk.


Back in his own office, Andy called Peter’s mobile number.  It went straight to answerphone.  Then he called the flat and got the machine.

Of course, Peter would be on his way in.  He’d probably forgotten to charge his battery, or plug the phone into the cradle in the car.  He was worse with his mobile than Andy was.

Mason’s full report on Craig Cliffe was on his desk and Dalziel reached for it, opening the cover and starting to read.


At eight, he went out into the main office and called everyone together for the briefing.  Peter and Wieldy still weren’t in.

“Right.  Two victims.  Craig Cliffe and Ashley Peek.”

DC Lateef spoke up.  “Six years ago, Ashley Peek was a lecturer in Computer Science at Wetherton University.  Craig Cliffe has lived in Wetherton all his life.  Neither were married, neither seemed to have had steady girlfriends.”

“What about boyfriends?”  Lateef’s hesitation told him all he needed to know.  “Look in to it.  What about witnesses?”

“Still nothing, Sir.”

“What is this guy?  A ghost?”  He caught site of Wieldy out of the corner of his eye and grinned.  “Welcome back, Sunshine.”

Wieldy didn’t answer, not directly.  “Can I ‘ave a word, Sir?”

“Course.”  Bemused, more used to the inspector simply speaking up, Andy crossed to where he was standing.  And he saw how pale he was.  “What’s up?  Too many exhaust fumes?”

"Sir... they've found Pete's car."

It seemed like a strange thing for Wieldy to be so tentative about.  "What d'yer mean they've found his car?  Didn't realise he'd lost it."

"No, Sir.  I mean... they found it abandoned, on the Avemoor Road.  Keys still in the ignition."

“Wieldy… what are you talkin’ about?”

“He didn’t come with me to Leeds yesterday.  I couldn’t find ‘im, figured he was busy so I went by myself.  By the time I got back it was gone ten, there were no one around.”

His implied meaning suddenly dawned.  “So… you’re sayin’ that the last time you saw ‘im was two days ago?”

“Yes, Sir.  In the Bull, the night before we found Ashley Peek’s body.”

Dalziel took a deep breath and released it slowly, not wanting to think, not wanting to go down this road.  He should have acted sooner.  He should be known that Peter would have called him, no matter what the time.  Would have come round, whenever they’d got into Wetherton.  Would have climbed into Andy’s bed and demanded his attention no matter how daft the hour.

“He left my place at six yesterday mornin’.  He was going to York to interview a friend of Cliffe’s who’d rung sayin’ they ‘ad sommat but wouldn’t come to the station.”  He let Wieldy interpret the time as he would.  If something had happened to Peter, it was the least of their worries.  “I think we need an immediate search of the area."

"Already underway, Sir.  I thought it best not to lose any time."

"Yer thought right.  Where's the car now?"

"On its way to Forensics."

Dalziel swallowed, the briefing forgotten. 

He was desperately trying to come up with a plausible explanation for Peter abandoning his car in the moors but he couldn’t.   There just wasn’t one.  If it had broken down he’d have called the recovery service and he’d have called Andy.  If he’d stopped to throw up his breakfast for some reason he’d have limped back home, gone to bed and called Andy when he woke.

Taking his mobile from his pocket, Andy pressed the speed dial number for Peter’s phone.  Like the last time it didn’t ring.

‘DI Pascoe.  Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.  Alternatively, ring Wetherton CID on 07844 13255.’

After the beep, Andy did as he’d been told. 

”Peter, Andy.  Call me when yer get this.”  He ended the call.  “Phones ‘ave to be switched on for us to trace them, right?”

”Right.  But we can get its last known location.”

”Last known by who?”

“By the network, Sir.  Mobiles register their location with their network every forty-five minutes to an hour.”

“I suppose it makes life easier for the funny buggers.”  He couldn’t think straight.  “Find out.”

”Yes, Sir.  There’s somethin’ else, if yer want to hear it.”

Andy nodded.  He was grateful that if this turned into his worst nightmare, at least one person would understand without explanation what he would be going through.  Already he was starting to feel a cold dread.

“I know what was used to kill Craig Cliffe.”

“You’ve found the murder weapon?”

“No, Sir.  I just know what was used.”

He handed his boss a long packet of what was exactly as Mason had described – a string of beads about a quarter of an inch in diameter.  A cardboard label at the top of the bag declared the string to be ‘Jelly Anal Beads’.

Andy beckoned Wieldy in to his office and closed the door.

”Would you be able to tell me what these are used for?”

“It’s a sexual thing, Sir,” he explained without embarrassment.  “They’re inserted one by one and when they’re pulled out it’s… pleasurable.”

The wanton image of Peter lying naked on his bed with half a string of beads hanging out of his ass was instantly replaced in Andy’s mind with the horrific image of Peter lying naked and bleeding on the moor somewhere with a string of soiled anal beads around his throat.

Andy felt the blood drain from his extremities as the reality struck home hard.

"God, Wieldy... where is he?"

“We’ll find ‘im, Sir.  And we’ll be in time.  I had a call from the guy at the university.  Peek’s car is still in the car park there, we’re taking that back to forensics to but he’s also having CCTV tapes couriered over to me, should be here within the next two hours.  There was somethin’ he said in the message he left.  The first time he referred to Peek as Dr Peek, the second time he just said ‘Ashley’.”

“So?”

“I got the feelin’ there was more between them that just colleagues.”

“Find out.  And get Lateef checking on Cliffe.  If they’re both gay that’s a connection and it might explain the sexual assault and causes of death.”


Once Wieldy had left, Andy slumped down behind his desk.  What he’d said to his inspector had felt like clutching at straws but they had precious little else to go on.  He knew they’d have to start looking into Peter’s past, take his life apart as they did with every other victim.  He tried not to think about what might be happening to his partner at that moment.

He could hope Peter wasn’t caught up in this, that whoever had killed Cliffe and Peek hadn’t ever laid eyes on Pascoe.  He could hope there was another explanation for Peter’s disappearance, for his car being abandoned where it was.  But other explanations were just as bad.

Maybe he’d seen the killer dump Peek’s body and maybe the killer had seen him.  Peter wouldn’t have gone quietly, he’d have put up one hell of a fight.

If he had been taken by the same attacker, there was the hope that he would be kept alive for a time.  But Cliffe had been seen alive by a reliable witness only twelve hours before his body was found.  And it sounded like Peek had been seen at least twenty hours earlier.

Peter had been missing almost twenty-six hours.  If they found his body, Andy knew he’d never forgive himself.  He would have failed the one person who’d taught him what it meant to be in love, what it meant to share a life with someone.  He couldn’t lose Peter.

Taking a deep breath he started to go over again in his mind what they knew about the two victims.

~

He stopped shivering for just a moment, hearing the banging of the door that signalled him coming.

He stayed completely still, feeling helpless, hearing the scrape of a key in a padlock and then the grating of wood against wood.  The occasion crash of metal objects accompanied the visits and he’d tried to mentally plot the way to the door but he was finding it hard to think straight.

Not that it mattered.  He couldn’t move because it hurt too much.  He was trapped, hands caught and bound.  Ankles too.

He felt breath on his face and then the tape was ripped from his mouth. 

The first time he’d tried to talk and he’d been slapped hard for his trouble.

The second time he’d shouted at the top of his lungs and had received a punch in the stomach that had left him winded and gasping for breath.

This time he just prepared himself for what came next. 

Water – poured in an unending stream into his mouth and down his throat.  He swallowed as much as he could, as controlled as he could be under the circumstances.  It was a small bottle – 50cl – he’d worked out.  But he didn’t know how long between visits – whether it was random or regular.  He’d tried counting but his terrified mind wouldn’t let him concentrate on that for too long.

The stream ended and immediately the tape was slapped back over his mouth, pressed hard into place.  He didn’t say a word and neither did his captor.

He heard the padlock, heard the door.  And he started to shiver again.

Andy would find him.  He had to keep believing in that.

~

Andy had left his door open – he wanted to hear everything that was going on outside in the main office, everything that was happening.

Wieldy didn’t need to knock.  He stepped over the threshold holding a grey file but didn’t hand it to Dalziel.

“What’s that?”

"Forensics report, Sir, on Pete’s car.  No fingerprints that weren't expected, but they did find black hairs on the driver's headrest.  They're running a DNA profile now.  They also found blood on the passenger seat.  Again, they're running a DNA profile but the blood type matches Pete's."

Dalziel let out the breath he'd been holding.  Then he nodded.  “Right.”


The chatter of the assembled taskforce - uniformed officers and CID detectives from three different areas - fell to silence as Dalziel stepped up to address them with Wieldy at his side.

Reverently, he stuck the picture of Peter's smiling face to the middle board under the heading 'Missing', and in a shaking hand wrote his name underneath it.  For a moment he two he stared at the beloved features, remembering the photograph being taken, wondering at how often he'd been through these motions and how hard it was this time around.

Then he turned to his waiting audience.

"DCI Peter Pascoe.  Missing since yesterday.  His car was found on the Avemoor Road, keys still inside.  We think it was driven there by his abductor and abandoned.  We know Peter was in the passenger seat at one point what we don't know is if he was taken somewhere and then the car dumped or whether he was taken out of the car on Avemoor Road.  I want the area around where the car was found searched again.

“The last time Peter was seen was at six a.m. yesterday getting into his car outside 48 Worthington Crescent.  My 'ouse.  Check speed cameras, he's can't read speed limit signs and he's regularly getting picked up on them."  Andy glanced at Wieldy who gave him a smile of encouragement.

"Now... it 'as been pointed out that there's more than a passing similarity between DCI Pascoe and our two murder victims.  Lateef's working on establishing a connection between the other two so he'll be collating all information from interviews.”

Andy stopped and Wieldy picked up the address. 

“I’ve got the CCTV tapes from Leeds University, Jackson’s looking through them as we speak.  Yesterday I searched Peek’s office and rooms but there wasn’t anything to suggest he was up to sommat he shouldn’t ‘ave been.  Having said that, I’ve sent Mills and Boon off to talk to a colleague of his again, I think there might ‘ave been somethin’ going on between them.  Lateef’s checked Cliffe’s flat but there’s nothing to suggest his sexuality either way.”

“It was just a complete mess,” Lateef spoke up.

“Not like someone had turned it over?” Dalziel clarified.

“No, Sir.  Like my brother’s place.  A tip.”

Wieldy continued.  “Check every known movement of Cliffe and Peek, if you think a reconstruction will help, go ahead.  I’ll be tryin’ to track Pete’s movements yesterday morning.  We've called a press briefing at six, live on the evening news.  By then, I want to have something to say."  He looked at the worried faces.  "Okay.  Let's get to it."

As the group dispersed in haze of hushed chat, Wield moved to stand by Dalziel's shoulder.  "Are you all right, Sir?"

Andy shook his head.  "No.  I’m definitely not.”

~

The hours dragged by.  He hated feeling so utterly helpless.

The press briefing had enabled them to address the wider audience of the public so it might have helped but it had been a nightmare to do.

Dalziel had no idea what time it was until Wield knocked on his door said gently, knowing it was essentially pointless, "You should get some sleep, Sir."

"I can't.  He could be anywhere, going through... God knows what.  I slept last night.  If owt 'appens to 'im...."  He shook his head slowly.  "I need a coffee."

Getting up he followed Wield back into the main office.  And stopped in his tracks.  No one had gone home.  The team was as busy now - at almost midnight - as it had been in the middle of the day.  "We've just ordered pizza, Sir," Wieldy told him quietly.  "Hope that's okay."

"Christ, Wieldy.  Order anythin' yer want."  He turned, looking at his inspector.  "Thank you.  Thank them, would yer?"

Wield nodded and watched the boss amble down the corridor heading for the canteen.  He could only hope the smell of freshly fried food would entice Dalziel to at least eat something.

~

By the time the sun rose, clues were still leading to dead ends.

Dalziel waited until quarter to nine before heading out.

There were six sex shops in Wetherton – an Anne Summers, a small but clean place called Toyz and three sleazy video stores. 

There was also a lap-dancing club but that had an official license and Andy had even been there once on the stag night of a friend of his.  The night hadn’t ended quite as they’d hoped though, when the groom-to-be had suffered a heart attack and collapsed into the arms of the woman dancing for him.  The poor man had regained consciousness in hospital twelve hours later only to find he’d been banned from the club for life for breaking the ‘no touching’ rule and the wedding was off.

Both Anne Summers and Toyz sold anal beads in various shapes, sizes and colours, including the purple jelly ones Wieldy had presented him with.  Both places sold dildos too – in even more differing shapes and sizes.

But both stores were chip ‘n’ pin compliant so they would have to go through the bank to check credit card usage and chances were whoever had bought the items – if indeed he or she had purchased them specially, in Wetherton, and hadn’t had them lying around in the house – had paid cash anyway.

Dalziel had left the stores quickly, not because of any prudish desire to get out but because he couldn’t help thinking about Peter, about their new relationship and about some of the things they’d done.  Rightly or wrongly, seeing all the plastic and silicone penis substitutes, all the things made to enhance the sexual experience and all the shapes specifically designed for insertion into various orifices of the human body had given him ideas, ideas he might have liked to experiment with.  He’d never had anything before even close to what he had with Peter.

He was terrified now that he was about to have the best thing he’d ever experienced taken brutally from him.  Inside him, a voice that was ranting and raving, crying and screaming was getting louder and louder.  God forbid he should ever meet the person who was doing this to them.  He honestly wasn’t sure that he’d be capable of controlling himself.

Sitting in his car outside Anne Summers he considered other leads.  Witnesses were pitifully scarce.

No one had seen Craig Cliffe’s body dumped in the graveyard.  It had been discovered by a woman going to lay flowers on her husband’s grave.  One local man living opposite the church, who had got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and a piss, had thought he’d seen a dark coloured 4x4, like a Land Rover or a Jeep, parked at the church gates.  But he couldn’t swear that he hadn’t dreamt it.

He tried to piece together what might have happened to Peter.  Maybe he’d heard about the discovery of Peek’s body.  He’d left Andy’s place an hour before Wieldy had picked his boss up, heading for York.  If he’d detoured to Balach he would have been there around six-thirty.  But then no one had seen him at the scene.  And his car had been found on the Avemoor Road – Lateef and Mason had both taken that route to and from the crime scene and hadn’t mentioned seeing Peter’s car.  So maybe… maybe Peter had made it to York and had interviewed this friend.

Dalziel called Wieldy.  “What’ve yer got?”

His inspector never disappointed him.  “Orange have provided the last known location for Peter’s mobile.  The last time it registered with the network was at 7.23 yesterday morning, in the centre of York.”

“Find out who it was Peter was meeting and where they were meeting will yer?  If he were in York at that time, chances are he met whoever it was who called.  Peter’s car must have been abandoned on the moor road after we’d left the scene yesterday.”

“Right on it, Sir.”

Ending the call, he headed back to the station.

~

“No official record of who Pete was going to meet but I did find this on his desk.”  Wieldy handed Andy a scrap of paper with the words,

‘Alexander Walton, York Savoy, 7am’

scribbled diagonally in Peter’s neat, even handwriting.

“I want to speak to ‘im.  Or ‘er.”

Wieldy shook his head.  “I rang the hotel.  They don’t have any record of an Alexander Walton staying there in the last year never mind the last week.”

“Do they remember Peter turning up yesterday?”

He smiled a tiny smile.  “One of the girls on reception does.  She says, and I quote, ‘this gorgeous guy leaned over and flashed his badge, but I weren’t lookin’ at that, I were lookin’ at his smile.  He had a lovely smile’.  When I got her to describe him properly she did describe Pete almost perfectly.”

It seemed like the first positive thing he’d heard all day.  “Right.  Don’t suppose she got a look at whoever he met?”

“No.  She said he went into the bar.  It got busy and she didn’t see him again.  I’ve already run a check on Alexander Walton and turned up nothing.  The closest person I could find is living in Scarborough and is 82.”

“Right.  So we can assume that wasn’t his or her name.  What if whoever it was either somehow convinced Peter to drive them back to Wetherton or drove the car back themselves with Peter restrained or unconscious in the passenger seat?  Any witnesses at all?”

"All we have is a Mr Hatcher reported seeing a Land Rover up on the Avemoor Road at around midnight on Monday, said it was parked in the same lay-by where we found Pete's car."

"A Disco or a Defender?"

Wieldy had learnt always to have his facts on hand, that way Dalziel wouldn't catch him out with unexpected questions.  So he'd been expected a query over make and model.  He hadn't expected his boss to be so specific.  "Defender, Sir.  Why?"

"Tells us the type of monster we might be dealin' with.  Posh ponces mainly drive Discoverys and Freelanders - makes 'em feel important cause they're three foot higher than the rest of us.  They're used for carting bairns to school and shiftin’ pheasants and precious little else.  People who actually need a 4x4 drive Defenders.  They use 'em properly to carry dogs and sheep and farmers and such."

It was Dalziel's usual type of diatribe but his heart just wasn't in it.

"We don't know that the Land Rover belonged to whoever took Pete."

"Course we do, Wieldy!  That's where he abandoned Peter's car, maybe he still had Peter with 'im.  He had to 'ave some way of gettin' outta there - he didn't walk, not with an unconscious or struggling man in tow, did he?"  Dalziel's tone got more insistently angry as he spoke.  "There's nowhere to go.  So 'e needed an escape route.  Chances are Peter’s car’s going to be recognised, so he parks his Defender there the night before, when there's less chance of 'im being seen.” 

“But why the Avemoor Road, Sir?  He’d know there’d be police around there because of Peek’s body.”

It was a good point and Dalziel said so.  “Still, check with the local taxi companies, see if any of 'em picked up a man from somewhere on the Avemoor Road late Monday night - check with pubs along there too - The Hill and Dale and The Sheep Dip would be yer best bets."

"Yes, Sir," was really all he could say.  To get on with it was all he could do.  Andy was worried sick and Wieldy knew it wasn't just concern for a colleague.  It was the concern of a man terrified for someone he loved.  He couldn't imagine anything happening to Edwin, anything shattering the peaceful, almost idyllic life he had in Enscombe.

Peter and Andy were surrounded by their jobs all day every day.  Neither of them were ever really off duty.  But that they'd finally found some deeper connection with one another didn't surprise Wield.  He was happy for them.  Now someone was threatening that.  It was only a matter of time before Andy snapped under the pressure of leading a search for what might well turn out to be the body of his lover.  At that point, would he be able to walk away?  Would Wieldy himself be able to carry on?  It would be an autopsy he couldn't attend, a pathology report he couldn't read. 

No.  Andy would be replaced by another SIO, Peter's close colleagues removed from the case.  There was procedure to be followed.

Taking his car keys and his mobile he headed out to the pubs on the Avemoor Road.  He could call the taxi companies on the way.

~

Three hours later, and utterly deflated, Wieldy returned to the station. 

He stepped into Dalziel’s office a second behind Jackson.  Opening his mouth to say he had nothing, he was beaten to it by the young female PC.

“I’ve been watching the CCTV tapes from the university, Sir.  At six thirty on Monday evening a man arrives at Peek’s office.  Ten minutes later they leave together.  They get into another car, not Peek’s, and leave the car park with the other man driving.  That’s the last time Peek appears on the tapes.”

“Finally!  Have we got a description?”

“Better.  We got a number plate and now we’ve got a name.  Colm Mullam.  And an address in Wetherton.”

Andy’s eyes hardened.  “Let’s go.”

~

The house was set back from the road, the end one in a row of five large detached properties on the edge of one of the older Wetherton suburb estates.

Wieldy was driving with Andy in the passenger seat.  They’d left Lateef back at the station, pulling together everything he could on their new – their only - suspect.  Jackson was in one of the marked police cars following.  They were out in force.

On the way Andy read the remainder of Jackson’s hurriedly written notes.  She’d make a good detective one day.  Probably under Peter’s wing he thought in the same unguarded moment.  The sudden grief and fear was crushing but he tried to push it to the back of his mind for now.

Mullam had only been renting the room in the house for three months.  His previous address was a place closer to town.  He was thirty-three years old, a software developer for a large company in Leeds.  Only a phone call to the firm confirmed he’d been off work sick for the last eight days.

It was a difficult property to surround, so Dalziel kept the other cars out of sight.  The last thing he wanted was Mullam making a run for it.  If he lost Mullam it could mean losing Peter too.

He and Wieldy approached the front door up the long steep path and steps that lead from the road.  The garden was just as sloped on either side and for an odd moment Andy recalled his childhood – he and Harriet on sledges in the snow.

He left it to his inspector to do the knocking and they stood, listening for any movement in or around the house.  Leaving Wieldy on the doorstep, Andy started around the side of the building, following the weed-strewn path.

As he rounded the corner he could see the back yard.  The patio was as overgrown as the path and the grass hadn’t been cut in months.  There was a greenhouse with more broken panes of glass than those in tact.  Next to that there was a large shed.

Andy headed for it, eyes landing on the new, shiny padlock on the door.

“WIELDY!”  His inspector came running.  “Call in the rest of ‘em, I want this place turned upside down and I want this shed open now!”

Wieldy didn’t hesitate.  He sprinted back to the car, picked up the radio and gave the call sign.  Then he opened the boot and grabbed the toolkit.  He was back at Dalziel’s side inside a minute.

Dropping the tools to the ground he hurriedly opened it and picked up something resembling a crowbar, only shorter.  Ordinarily, Andy would have made a crack about boy scouts but he stayed silent, watching while Wieldy forced one end of the bar into the padlock’s thick metal arch. 

He heard the cars screeching to a halt at the front of the house, heard slamming doors and officers making their way up the path.

Jackson appeared around the side of the house and Andy barked his orders.  “Search the place.  I want to know where he is.”

She nodded and disappeared again, relaying the command to the rest of the team.  Her voice was drowned out by the sound of his own heart pounding painfully against his ribcage as the padlock gave way under the pressure Wieldy was exerting and popped open.

Removing the broken lock, Wield opened the door of the shed carefully and peered into the gloom.

It was a mess – cluttered with old tools, buckets, tins, even a rusted lawn mower.

And in the middle of it he saw a man’s body lying face down, wrists bound at the small of his back, ankles lashed together.  Very, very still.

“Pete….”  Wieldy barely recognised his own voice.

“No.”

The inspector’s head snapped away from the sight to stare at his boss.  It hadn’t been an uttered denial.  It had been a statement of fact.  “Sir….”

“It’s not Peter.”

Wield glanced back into the cold darkness.  It looked like him.  Same hair colour and style, same broad shoulders and broad build.  Stepping inside cautiously, careful not to disturb evidence if he could help it, he turned the head to one side, fingers searching for a pulse as he saw to his immense relief that Dalziel was right.  It wasn’t Peter.  Whoever he was just looked very much like him.

“He’s dead, Sir.”

Andy was still trying to breathe.  He leaned back against the side of the shed, eyes closed, desperate, frustrated and frantic.  Terrified for his partner.  He was sure now that Mullam had taken Peter.  The only questions that remained were ‘where is he?’ and ‘is he still alive?’.  And for those answers he had to find Mullam.


Fifteen minutes later forensics were all over the shed and the house, working in partnership with Dalziel’s team inside and Dr Mason’s outside.

“He’s been dead a week,” was the pathologist’s conclusion after a short time.

“Why isn’t he more decomposed?”

”It’s been cold.  There’s been a frost most nights.  Preserves the body.”

“Cause of death?”

“Strangulation, possibly with the same thing that was used to kill Craig Cliffe – I’ll be able to tell you for sure when I get him back to the lab.  He may have had anal sex before he died, but again, I’ll confirm that later.”  He straightened.  “I’m drowning in bodies, Dalziel.  Three in three days – this one’s working fast.”

Andy stared at the house looming in front of him.  One a week ago, then a couple of days’ quiet, then one a day for two or three days in a row.

If he took a helicopter up, would he find Peter’s body dumped somewhere like trash?

Forcing himself to move, he went into the house.  There were five bedrooms.  They’d apparently worked out which one was Mullam’s and were taking it apart.

Andy left them to it and went into the lounge.  It was a mess.  Old newspapers, dirty cutlery, stinking takeaway cartons with rotting food still inside them.  There were photos on the mantelpiece above the grate, framed and neatly arranged in a row. 

Andy picked one at random and gazed at the two faces that smiled back at him.  A man and a woman.  Amazing how much like Peter he looked.

He found Wieldy still out in the back yard and handed him the frame.  “Is this our body in the shed?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I think he’s Mullam’s landlord.  I think he killed him to test his nerve.  Or maybe it was an accident and he got a taste for it.  Whatever the reason, I don’t think we’ll find a link between this man and the other two.  I think Mullam’s the only link.  So where is he?”

~

Driving back, Andy could feel the adrenaline cold, sickly sticky in his veins.  He’d left Wieldy to co-ordinate activities at the house.  He wanted to catch up with Lateef and the rest of the investigation.  He wanted Peter back more than anything else in the world.  He just wanted to find him alive, just wanted to see him smile.  He understood now why parents of missing kids made such heartbreaking pleas on the news for their child’s return when deep inside they know it’s too late.

As he walked slowly along the corridor to his office Lateef was standing at the end, waiting for him.  He had a file in his hands and when Andy stopped just in front of him, he started to read without preamble.

"Colm Mullam.  Arrested in 1994 for GBH, did two months.  Nothing since then but up until three months ago he was living with a man called Alex Waldon. According to friends, Waldon left him and it wasn't an amicable break up."

Andy growled, “But he hasn’t killed anyone called Alex Waldon has he?”

Taking a cautious step back, Lateef agreed, “Not that we know of, Sir.”

"So what's the connection?"

"Before meeting Mullam, Alex Waldon shared a house with Craig Cliffe.  And when he was at university there were rumours that he was sleeping with his lecturer."

Andy almost smiled, "Don't tell me.  Dr Ashley Peek."

Lateef nodded.  "There's something else, Sir.”  He paused.  “Mullam regularly plays squash at Wetherton Leisure Centre on a Tuesday night with DCI Pascoe."

The connection seemed to give undeniable weight to Andy’s theory that Peter was dead.  He opened his mouth, not sure himself what would come out, but he was interrupted by his mobile chirping in his pocket.  He snatched it up, glancing at the screen.

“Wieldy?”

“We’ve got Mullam, Sir.  Jackson found a diary in his room.  He’s an electrician, that’s probably how he met Cliffe.  He had an appointment in Tadcaster this afternoon, local police picked him up and they’re bringing him to Wetherton.  I’m on my way back with Jackson.”

“Good work, both of yer.”  He sighed softly.  “Good work.”

~

On his return, Wield took a coffee and some sandwiches up to Dalziel’s office.

“I’m not hungry,” Andy told him, gratefully taking the coffee.

”I know, Sir.”  But he left the sandwiches anyway.  “About Pete leavin’ your house at six that morning, Sir.”  He met Dalziel’s unreadable expression.  “I suppose he’s stayed in your spare room quite a bit since the accident, just to be safe.”

Thankful, Dalziel nodded.  “Aye.”

“He’s been a lot ‘appier recently.”

“I ‘ope so, Wieldy.  Didn’t think he’d ever… be ‘appy, stayin’ in my spare room.  But after the accident we talked a lot.  Well, I talked a lot, ‘e listened.  Didn’t ‘ave much choice seeing as he was stuck on my sofa without ‘is crutches.”  He smiled, and realised how much it hurt.  It would always hurt.  When did he have to start talking about Peter in the past tense?

”We’ll find ‘im,” Wieldy told him confidently.  “And we’ll find ‘im alive.”

Dalziel shook his head, fighting the tears finally blossoming in his eyes.  “I think ‘e’s dead.”

Wield’s determination was the opposite of Dalziel’s despair.  “He’s not dead.  We’ll find him.  We have to.”

When the knock on the door came, Andy turned away and let Wield deal with Lateef.  “Mullam’s here, Sirs.  He’s in Room 4.”  He wisely left after delivering the news.

Dalziel wiped his eyes and finished his coffee, pushing the sandwiches to one side.  Without another word, he got up and met Wieldy’s uncertain eyes.

“Don’t worry, lad.  I won’t murder ‘im until we’ve found Peter.”

~

Lateef was standing outside the interview room as they approached.

"He's asked for a solicitor, Sir."

Andy pushed the door of the room open so hard the inside handle took out a chunk of wall.  "Bugger that, he's not gettin' one.  Hear that, Mullam?"

Colm Mullam reminded Dalziel of a squadie.  And it wasn’t just the clothes.  He was hunched over the table, picking at his fingernails.  But he looked fit – presumably all that running around the squash courts.  When he saw Dalziel and Wieldy, he sat back in his chair.

"Yer can't deny me my rights," he warned with ill-placed confidence.

"Try me."  Dalziel sat down hard in one of the seats on the far side of the table and watched Wield close the door behind the exiting uniform.  "I don't 'ave anythin' to lose.  You do."

"I killed those men, I'm not denyin' it!"

"You’re proud of it."

"Of course!  I showed bloody Alex who's best, who's the limp-wristed poof."

Dalziel searched the filing cabinet that was his mind for when the name ‘Alex’ had last come up.  Unfortunately, this time around, it was a mess.  Papers everywhere like someone had ransacked the place.

Luckily Wieldy was keeping his head.  “Alex Waldon?  Your partner?”

“Bastard dumped me three months ago.  Threw me outta the house.”

“I don’t care,” Dalziel growled, leaning forward.  “I want to know what you’ve done with DCI Pascoe.”

Mullam's eyes widened.  He looked from the barely restrained superintendent to his calmer but no less deadly inspector.  "Peter Pascoe?  What's this got to do with him?  I play squash with him.  He's a decent guy, never done me any 'arm.”

"Where is he, Mullam?"

"I don't know!  I don't understand... I 'aven't seen 'im in weeks."

"We found 'is car," Dalziel told him between gritted teeth.  "We'll be able to prove you drove it to the Avemoor Road on Tuesday morning and dumped it."

"Are you accusin' me of stealin' his car?"

"We know you took 'im, Mullam!"  Andy had to force the words from his throat.  "Where is 'e?"

"I didn't take 'im!  Why should I?"

"To do to 'im what you did to the others."  It was one of the hardest things he'd ever said.  The last thing he wanted to hear, he knew, was a confession, the final end to what little hope he had left.

"I never touched Peter.  I like Peter, I told you.  The others... they were Alex's whores.  Alex didn't even...."  He trailed off.  "Wait a minute.  The Avemoor Road?  Out near Balach?"

Wieldy answered, "Yes."

"Alex's parents have a cottage out there.  A little brick place in the middle of nowhere."

Wieldy sat forward.  "Where, exactly?"

He gave them very specific directions, even drew a map, handcuffed, on the scrap of paper Wield pushed in front of him.  But Andy had paid very good attention.

"If you're lyin', Mullam," he spat as he leaned heavily on the table, "I'll nail yer balls to the wall and bugger the consequences."

~

A convey of cars howled up the Avemoor Road. 

Dalziel was gripping the plastic handle above the passenger window as Wieldy pushed the Vectra to its limits.  “If Mullam was killin’ Waldon’s ex-boyfriends and rubbin’ his nose in it, are we sayin’ Waldon took Peter to make it even?”

“Mebbe he thought he were being outdone.”

“Peter’s not a bloody bargaining chip!  He’s my DCI, my lover….  Jesus, Wieldy.  Just let him be alive.”


The stone cottage could be seen from the road but the track leading to it from the road was half a mile long.  Wieldy was already that distance in front of the trail of cars that followed but he didn’t slow down.  Instead he slid the car to a halt in front of the small building, passenger door towards the cottage, knowing Dalziel would be out before he’d stopped the engine.

Andy tried the front door and it opened.  “Alex Waldon?” he called into the cool hall.

Glancing back he saw the rest of the cars pull up and in seconds he was joined by eight uniformed officers.  That at least made this official.

He stepped into the low-ceiled living room.  “Waldon?”  Nothing.  He changed tack.  “Peter?”  Taking a deep breath, he shouted at the top of his lungs.  “PETER!”

Slamming open the door into the kitchen he caught sight of a large man flying through the back door of the cottage.  Andy was faster, motivated by terror and rage he grabbed the man’s arm before he was all the way through the door. 

“Alex Waldon, you’re under arrest.”

Waldon struggled against Dalziel’s grip but when four officers blocked his way into the garden and four more appeared behind the his captor, he stopped fighting and seemed to collapse in on himself, starting to sob loudly.

“Where the ‘ell’s Peter?” Andy yelled, shaking his prisoner hard.  Waldon just shook his head despairingly.  So Andy threw him into the hands of the uniforms and stomped off again.

He methodically rampaged through the small house, throwing open every door, checking every room.  There weren’t too many of them and it took him a matter of a couple of minutes, no more.

He returned to the hall where Lateef was now holding Waldon under the cautiously watchful eye of a uniformed officer.  Waldon, cuffed, wasn’t giving them any more trouble. 

Until Andy raged in.

“Where is he?”

Lateef started to put himself between his prisoner and his boss, uncertain that it was a good idea.
 
But he wasn’t going to stop Andy from getting his large hands around Waldon’s throat.

“Tell me where he is or you won’t have a chance to defend yerself in front of a judge.”

Something in Andy’s expression must have given away the seriousness of the threat, something in his eyes telling of the fine line he was walking.

“Garage,” Waldon ground out roughly but it was lost in the shout that went up from outside.  Wieldy’s shout.

Andy let go and ran, rounding the side of the cottage just in time to see three uniforms opening the side door of the derelict garage with more force than was probably required.  Wooden splinters flew from the wreckage as the padlock gave and the door was yanked open.

Andy was first through the hazardous entrance and once inside it took a moment for his eyes to accustom to the dim light after the bright sunshine outside. 

The floor was littered with empty tins and antique tools.  It was cold and damp and musty.  But there was another smell too.  A human smell.  Fear; dank and sickening.

Against one wall was a rusted, iron-sprung bed.  And on it sat his DCI – gagged and blindfolded, in just his white shirt and underwear, both garments torn and soiled.

“Peter,” Andy breathed his name once then crossed the garage, using a narrow path that looked as if it had been hurriedly cleared by something being dragged through it.  He knew what that ‘something’ had been.  If Peter hadn’t been so obviously alive, he would have gone back and finished the job on Waldon before anyone could have stopped him.

“It’s okay, Sunbeam,” he reassured, “I’m ‘ere now, Peter.  It’s okay.”  Carefully he perched on the edge of the rusted frame.  There was no mattress and now he was closer he could see how his colleague – his lover – was restrained.

His hands had been forced through the hard metal springs and his wrists taped together underneath, stopping him from pulling them free, although by the looks of the lacerations he’d tried.  The same went for his feet which were trapped at what looked to be a painful angle.

“Find something to cut this metal,” Dalziel instructed to anyone listening before touching Peter’s face.  “Just take it easy.  I’m ‘ere now, you’re safe.”  He started to peel off the gag – a wide, thick piece of silver duct tape.

As soon as he pulled the tape from Peter’s mouth, his own name was croaked on badly smelling breath.  Andy wanted to kiss the bleeding lips but he settled for stroking Peter’s cheek.

“I’m ‘ere, just ‘ang on a couple more minutes.”

“Ambulance is on its way, Sir,” Wieldy informed him as he produced a pair of wire cutters.

“Don’t move, now, Peter,” Andy warned him, starting to pick carefully at the tape across his eyes.  “Wieldy’s going to cut through these springs and we’ll get yer free.”

The tape didn’t come away as easily as the piece over his mouth, and a couple of light-coloured eyebrow hairs came away with it, but Andy reckoned they’d grow back.  As he removed it, though, he raised his other hand and covered Peter’s eyes carefully.  He had no idea how long – or even why – he’d been blindfolded.

“Yer need to let yer eyes adjust to the light,” he instructed gently, removing the last edge of tape clinging to Peter’s reddened skin.  Crouched next to him, Wield was carefully cutting though the thick metal wires, being just as careful that the sharp ends didn’t cut into the trapped man’s flesh any further.  “Just take it slowly.”

Peter blinked madly, his eyes watering.  When he finally managed to keep them open for a second, Andy saw how bloodshot and sore they were.

He combed his fingers through Peter’s hair.  “You’ll be okay, Sunbeam.”  Peter’s expression of relief at being found was hard to look at.  “I’m sorry it took me so long to find yer.”

Carefully cutting, Wield got one hand freed.  Using an old, rusted knife that he found close to the bed he sliced through the tape binding Peter’s wrists and lifted that one hand carefully up through the remains of the springs and coils, getting to work on freeing the other one.

Peter moaned in pain as his arm was moved out of the position it had been locked in for days.  There were deep cuts and dark bruises on the back of his hand, his palm, fingers and wrist.  Andy rested it across Peter’s lap then, silently, berating himself for his lack of thought, shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Peter’s shoulders.

“Someone find me a blanket!” he called out to the uniforms mulling around the place.

He was handed one only a minute or two later, just as Wieldy cut Peter’s other hand free.  Andy put the left arm over the right, wincing at the pain on Peter’s face and at the mess Waldon had made forcing it though the iron frame.  Then he stood to wrap as much of Peter as he could in the blanket, covering his front and legs, putting the top corners over his shoulders.

“Andy…” Peter’s second painful grunt brought Andy stooping down, stopping Peter from hurting his hand further by reaching for him.

“I’m ‘ere, Petal.”

Peter’s voice was nothing but a whisper when he pleaded, “Don’t leave me.”

“Ah, Sunbeam.  I’m not goin’ anywhere.  It’s okay, I’ll stay with yer.  Ambulance’ll be ‘ere soon.  They’ll ‘ave some o’the good stuff, then you won’t feel a thing for a while.  It’s okay.  I’m just goin’ to lend a hand to Wieldy here.”  Who’d started to free Peter’s feet from their iron prison.

Taking the knife, Andy cut through the tape and when the right foot was released, he eased it through the potentially dangerous mesh.  Wieldy had already taken off his own jacket and made a safe bed for Peter’s damaged feet and ankles.  When they got the other foot free Andy wrapped Wield’s jacket around them.

Glancing up at Peter he reached up, stroking his hair and face.  “Peter… I need to know… did ‘e hurt you in any other way?”

Looking exhausted and in pain, Peter nodded.  “Hit me… on the back o’the ‘ead, in the car park.”  His voice was rough but he sounded calmer than Andy felt.

“That it, Sunbeam?”

Peter looked at him, and something about his eyes told Andy when the question’s real meaning registered.  He shook his head.  “Nothin’ like that.”

Andy’s relief was nothing compared to how he felt about finding Peter alive, but still he could find it in him to thank whatever god was listening.  In the distance he could hear ambulance sirens.  He wanted his partner out of here, somewhere warm, safe and comfortable.

He watched Peter close his eyes, head tipping forward.  Perching on the edge of the rusted frame he carefully put his arm around Peter.  “Just lean on me, Petal,” he murmured softly.  “Ambulance’ll be ‘ere soon.”

His lover’s weight against him was a good feeling.  Andy didn’t care what the uniforms around him thought.  He already knew what Wieldy thought.

“Get Waldon down to the station,” he instructed his inspector, “don’t let ‘im out o’yer sight.  And tell Lateef I want this place taken apart.  We don’t know for sure Peter’s the first he’s taken.”

“Sir.”  He hesitated.

“’e’s okay, Ed,” Andy told him quietly.  “I’m stayin’ with ‘im.”

Once Wieldy had gone Dalziel looked around the dim, dank garage that had been his partner’s confines for almost three days.  He couldn’t release the anger he was feeling.  Seeing this place, seeing where Peter had been while he’d been comfortable at home, safe in the office, he wanted to tear someone apart with his bare hands.

He could imagine some of what his lover had endured; not only the pain, the hungry and thirst, but the terror, the never knowing what was going to happen, whether he’d ever be found.

Closing his eyes he wished he were free to comfort Peter, and himself, more physically.  He knew the intensity of feeling would ease eventually, until then he just needed to keep himself under control.  And away from Waldon.

~

Dr Barnes stood at Andy’s side watching Peter sleep soundly. 

“I doubt he’s slept since the abduction,” Barnes told him.  “His system’s stressed and he’s dehydrated.  We’ve dressed his hands and wrists, feet and ankles; a couple of the lacerations needed stitches.  Now he just needs to rest and we need to get fluids into him.”

“Yer keepin’ ‘im overnight.”  Andy had known they would.  But he desperately wanted Peter home.

“Yes, just to be sure.  He’s taken a couple of nasty bangs on the back of the head.  I know if they’d caused any real damage – a haematoma for instance - he’d most probably be dead by now.  But we did an MRI scan just in case.  Everything looks fine.”  Dalziel closed his eyes, saying a silent ‘thank you’ to no one and everyone.  “We’ll keep the saline going intravenously through the night and see how he is in the morning.  He should be able to go home tomorrow.  I’m sure I don’t need to mention the term ‘counciling’.” 

Dalziel shook his head.  “He’s got… someone he talks to.  A doctor friend of his.  Someone… committed suicide in front of ‘im a couple o’years ago, threw ‘erself off a church.”

“Nice.  Don’t envy you lot your jobs.  Even after a thirty hour shift.”

He left, Dalziel scowling after him before moving closer to Peter’s bed and putting his hand on his partner’s forearm, mindful of the IV port and the white bandages.

The two ambulance men who’d arrived at the garage had spent a couple of minutes talking to Peter, checking his wounds, getting the drip into him, reassuring him.  Reassuring Andy too.  Unable to put the IV line in the back of Peter’s hand, they’d set the valve into the smooth, pale skin on the underside of his arm.  Then they’d carried him out of the hell he’d been trapped in for days and loaded him comfortably into the back of an ambulance.

Unable to hold his hand all Andy had been able do was sit and watch his restless partner settle as the morphine shot had quickly taken away the pain he was in and he’d been finally able to rest.  Until they’d reached the hospital at least.

Alone with his lover now, Andy leaned over and touched his lips to Peter’s warm forehead.

“I’m so sorry, Pete,” he whispered, “sorry I didn't know you needed me.  Sorry I didn’t realise you were missing, sorry I didn’t find yer sooner.  I’m not used to… to worryin’ about someone.  And I know yer don’t need me worryin’ about yer but when… when I thought I’d lost yer….”  He took a deep breath.  “I want yer to move in with me, I keep tryin' to find a way of askin' yer and I can't seem to do it.  Too final, I guess.  Too much like admitting once and for all I've fallen for me own Chief Inspector and my life of soft curves and luscious tits is over."

A quiet knock on the open door disturbed his monologue.  He turned, and saw an amassed army of plain clothed and uniformed police officers standing out in the ward off which Peter's little quiet haven was situated.

He may have been the most precious thing in the world to Andy but he was also invaluable to their case.  A key witness who was going to have to be questioned, going to have to write a statement and then later, no doubt, would take the stand in court and tell a room full of strangers - compassionate jurors and bottom-feeding journalists - all about the nightmare he'd experienced, the very intimate details of pain and terror.

“Listen, lad.  I need to go and charge the man who put you ‘ere and a man who’s killed three people.  I’m leavin’ yer in good ‘ands.  I’ll be back, Sunbeam.”

Going out into the main ward, he quietly instructed two of the uniformed officers - whose names he noted and made sure they knew he had - to stay with Peter and call Dalziel on his mobile as soon as he woke up.  He also warned them that absolutely no one should be allowed in to the room except for doctors and nurses.  He knew the bottom-feeders who worked for the local Wetherton rags – the last thing he wanted to see was Peter’s photograph splattered over the front pages.

Then he ordered the other officers to leave with him, much to the relief of the patient but flustered ward sister.

He got a lift back to the station in a squad car and was met in reception by Wieldy.  An unsurprisingly large number of journalists and photographers had gathered outside the building and after a quick briefing, Dalziel stepped out on to the top step to address them.  Digital cameras stored his image time after time.  At least he looked the part - no sleep in two days, pale through not having eaten more than measly pickings at a bag of chips

“We’ve arrested two men we can’t name at this time,” he told the reporters.  “One will be charged for the murders of Craig Cliffe, Ashley Peek and Jeremy Brown.  The other is being charged with the abduction of a high ranking officer.”

There was a general raising of voices but he did hear, “How is the officer?”

“He’s dehydrated and exhausted but otherwise uninjured.”

Another clear question, “Are the two cases connected?”

“Yes.  One arrest did lead to the second.”

There were others, but Dalziel promised a formal press release later and vanished back inside the building.

~

Once again, he perched on the edge of the bed.  Wieldy leaned back against the wall on the other side. 

There was so much unsaid between Andy and Peter the words hung in the air, anticipating use.  But they needed Peter’s statement.  Later, when Andy got his partner home, they could talk.  Andy could apologise.  He could only hope Peter would forgive him.

“I could have come in,” Peter complained, looking from Andy to Wieldy and back.

“You’re doing no such thing, Sunbeam.  And when they let yer go yer goin’ ‘ome.”

“Andy….”

“No arguments.  Now then, do yer duty and tell us what ‘appened.  And take yer time.”

Peter took a deep breath.  “I met… Alexander Walton at the Savoy just after seven on Tuesday morning.”  He looked up apologetically.  “What day is it now?”

Andy resisted the urge to reach out, to touch his lover.  “Friday.  And his name is Alex Waldron, not Walton.”

Nodding, Peter continued.  “He said he thought his ex-boyfriend had killed Cliffe, said he could prove it but that the evidence was back at the flat they shared in Wetherton but he was too scared to go back there on his own.  Told me the guy’s name was… Colin Muller.  I said I’d drive him back to Wetherton.  I was goin’a call in on the way back.  When he got out to the car he… hit me, across the back of the head.  I remember a sharp pain then nothing.

“When I woke up we were in my car, somewhere on the moor.  I think it was the Avemoor Road, we went past The Sheep Dip.”  He rubbed his eyes with the inside of his arm, his bandaged hands useless.  Andy nodded to confirm he was right.  “He’d taped my hands behind my back and when I started to move he put a knife to my throat.  He told me… he’d killed Cliffe, strangled him with a sex toy after he’d… used it on him.  Said he had… some things waitin’ for me too.”

He hesitated, obviously distressed.  Andy couldn’t just sit and not comfort.  He put his hand on Peter’s leg, just touching.  Peter glanced from him to Wieldy but worked out right that this change in their relationship couldn’t have stayed a complete secret through everything they’d obviously been through.

“He had a… Land Rover parked up.  Tried to make me go over to it.  When I refused he hit me again.  Don’t know how he got me into it, if he did.  Next time I came to I was sitting on that bed frame and he was… forcing my ‘ands through the springs.”  Peter closed his eyes.  “Think I screamed.  I can’t remember – I think I passed out.”

“Pete….”

Peter took a deep, shuddering breath.  “He came in sometimes, ripped the gag off and poured… water down my throat.  First time I choked, coughed up most of it.”

“Did ‘e… do any o’ the things he were threatenin’ yer with in the car?”

“No.  He seemed to… want to.  I couldn’t see him but I thought… he was looking.  Sometimes he just left immediately sometimes he just stood there.  I thought he was going to… do something but he didn’t.”

“Couldn’t, accordin’ to ‘im.  He took yer to wind up his boyfriend, who kill Cliffe and two other men; Waldon’s old lecturer from college, and his new landlord.  Waldon threw ‘im out three months ago.”

“Why me?”

“No easy way o’sayin’ this, Petal.  The other guy we’ve arrested is Colm Mullam.”

“Colm….”  Peter frowned.  “The man I play squash with?!”

“Aye, lad.  That’s why Waldon took yer.  He thought you and Mullam were ‘aving it away behind ‘is back.  But once ‘e ‘ad yer he said yer didn’t seem Mullam’s type and he couldn’t do what he’d planned on doin’.  He didn’t know what to do wi’ yer.  We arrested Mullam and he pointed us to Waldon.”

Peter’s expression said it all and Wield could read it from where he stood.  “I’ll be off back to the station,” he said quietly.

Andy glanced at him.  “Go ‘ome, Wieldy.  Get some sleep.”

He hesitated but nodded.  “Take care, Pete.”

Only when he’d gone did Peter rest on bandaged hand on Andy’s arm.  “Thanks for finding me.”

“Peter… I’m sorry it took me so long.  I didn’t know… didn’t know you were missin’.  I told Wieldy to take yer to Leeds with ‘im, so I thought that’s where you were on Tuesday.  There was an accident on the motorway and I thought that’s why yer didn’t come back that night.”

“It’s not your fault, Andy.  You found me before he did anythin’… that’s what matters.”

“It isn’t, Petal.  What matters is what you’ve been through, what I could ‘ave prevented.”

“Don’t.  Please.  I don’t want yer beatin’ yerself up over this.  I don’t want to see guilt every time I look at yer.  Please, Andy.”  Dalziel sighed, but he nodded, stroking the tiny, fine hairs on Peter’s arm.  “Now, go home.  Get some sleep.  I know you won’t have got any with me missing.”

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Andy said with forced humour, “slept like a bairn.”

“Did not.”

“All right.  Wish I could take yer with me, Petal.”

“I know.  But I wouldn’t be much use to you tonight.”

“Don’t be so daft.”  Standing, Andy leaned down.  “I’ll be back in the morning to break you out of here.”  He met Peter’s kiss.

~

Sitting down with a glass of Highland Malt, Andy stared into the dark of his lounge from the comfort of his own sofa. 

It was late.  Peter had woken sometime before midnight; he and Wieldy had gone to interview him as soon as he’d got the call.

Everything Peter had told them tallied with the statements of the two men they’d arrested.

Listening to Mullam’s confession had been easier than listening to Waldon’s.  Hearing someone talk about Peter like an object, a pawn in the sick game he and Mullam had started to play, had hurt.  He’d wanted to hurt Waldon in return but he’d resisted, reassuring himself again and again that his partner was safe in hospital.

The house was quiet, the heating having gone off two hours ago.  The only sound was the fridge compressor, and after a couple of minutes that too went silent.

It needed Peter to turn it from a house to a home, and it had taken him a long, long time to understand that.  All the time Peter had been living with him, all the time he’d spent trying to oust the guy, he’d never realised that it was where his friend and colleague belonged.  Not until it was too late and Peter was gone.

They’d had a row.

Eight months or so after Peter’s accident, over a file on a university lecturer, a doctor of archaeology.  Dr Ricks.  A file had been compiled on her during her involvement in the Poll Tax riots while she’d still been a university student, compiled by other students Peter had claimed, shouldn’t be kept never mind admitted as evidence.  At the same time, Andy’s first arrest as a DI was coming back to haunt him and although the possibility that he had cocked it up hadn’t yet surfaced, the awful memories had all been drudged up.

So, they’d had an argument.  Not an explosive blast as their past clashes had been but something more subtle, something more personal.  The kind of professional that only served to hide the real problems simmering under the surface.

And afterwards, late on when they were the only two left in the CID offices, Peter had offered the olive branch.


He stepped cautiously into Andy’s office, glancing at his boss, at the file he was reading – presumably on Carl Jacobs – and sat down in the chair opposite.

”I’m sorry I undermined you during the interview,” he started humbly, “what I said was right but where and when I said it was wrong.”

Andy looked at him for a time.  “You were right.”  Peter’s eyebrows rose half an inch.  “Not what yer said.  About guilty feelin’s, about the files on the Poll Tax riots and who’d compiled ‘em.  There was one on you.”  He was even more surprised.  “They documented both sides, Peter.  I found yours when you applied for the job.  I kept it in me desk for a year and then I destroyed it when I’d made my mind up to keep yer.  Didn’t want dirt like that gettin’ in yer way.  And I shouldn’t have held it against Dr Ricks either.  I wanted to throw the book at someone and she got in the way.”

“Why?”

Andy took a deep breath and released it slowly.  “Peter… eight months ago you almost died.  I ‘ad to face the possibility yer were never gonna wake up.  Scared the shit outta me that did.  And then last month, you sayin’ yer wanted to join Ellie and Rosie in the states.  I understand that, I really do but… I’m a selfish bugger, Pete.”

Stunned, Peter stared at him.  “I’m sorry.  You should have said something, I didn’t know… you felt for me.”

“Me neither, lad.  Not for a time.  Didn’t come as a great shock, mind.  Always known sommat was there but it wasn’t until I almost lost yer that I realised what the ‘ell it was.  See, when I went to the ‘ospital that night I ‘ad no idea you were so badly ‘urt.  I thought… I thought mebbe a couple o’broken bones and an ‘eadache.  When I saw yer lyin’ there, all those people around yer, all the blood and the… tubes… I thought I’d lost yer.  I could only ‘ope and pray you’d be okay.  I didn’t phone Ellie because I didn’t think she deserved to be there.  I ‘ated ‘er for what she’d done to you.  I didn’t want to, I could see it from ‘er point of view but still I couldn’t ‘elp it.  She’d ‘urt yer, made yer miserable, taken yer daughter from yer – not just a few miles or to a different county but thousands o’miles, to a new life that couldn’t include yer.  I love yer, Pete, seein’ yer so unhappy was ‘ard.  But I didn’t know what ‘ard was until I saw yer in that ‘ospital.”  His next breath hitched on tears he’d never shed, emotion he’d never faced.  “Why did yer get involved?  You’re a detective not a traffic copper!  Why did yer go after that car?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t think twice – I was so close and they were asking for assistance.  I’ve been in car chases before, loads o’times, I ‘ad no reason to think this one would be any different.”

“It was.”  The words almost caught in his throat.  “This time it almost cost yer life.  You know the number of policemen who get killed in the line of duty?  I don’t want you to be one of them, Pete.  I didn’t put this much time and effort into yer education only to lose you before yer’ve ‘ad a crack at Chief Constable!”

Momentarily lost for words, Peter did the only thing he could think to do.  He reached out and closed his fingers over Andy’s hand.  He mentally stumbled a couple of times before saying, “It meant a lot, waking up, seeing yer there.  I knew you’d been with me, while I’d been unconscious.  There were things I remembered, things said, touches… frightening stuff and comforting stuff.  I remembered you talking to me.  It were scary, all the tubes and wires and people doing thing for me I couldn’t do.  You were always there, I just didn’t understand what you’d been through, how worried you’d been.  I’m sorry I didn’t realise.”

Andy nodded, wiped away a rebel tear and turned his hand slowly under Peter’s, threading his fingers up through his.

“I’m not good at this, Pete,” he explained awkwardly.

Peter responded with a smile, “I think yer doin’ fine.”


It hadn’t been a night of explosive passion – that had come a couple of weeks later, after the ruthless teasing that had started out innocent enough but had turned sexual somewhere along the line.  When the long, knowing looks had become so full of meaning and the casual touches had become such moments of longing they’d had little choice but to let it happen.

The first time was in Peter’s flat.  They’d attended a death in a club in the city centre and afterwards they’d picked up a takeaway and gone to the flat – it had been closer than Andy’s suburban home.

The nightclub had been bad enough, filled with half-dressed sweaty young people, all of them at least half Peter’s age.  Dalziel was old enough to be grandfather to at least a proportion of them.  Still, pheromones were pheromones and the attraction that had been blossoming between them had seemed to hum in the hot club air.

They’d sat in the small, brightly lit Chinese takeaway for ten minutes, waiting for their order.  Peter had mentioned he’d always thought takeaways were the most depressing places on earth.  Andy had disagreed.  They were the waiting rooms for appointments with good food he’d stated cheerily.  And the man across from them had agreed wholeheartedly.  Andy remembered spending a few minutes talking with the other man about the merits of a good takeaway until his order had been declared ready and with two bags full of food he’d bade them goodnight.

Andy still recalled with perfect clarity the expression on Peter’s face when he’d turned to look at him.  A promise-filled smile, need burning bright in the blue eyes.  It had taken his breath away.  Their food was only a minute or so behind the other man’s and they drove to the flat in an odd, loaded silence.

Peter always kept beer in his fridge; lager for Andy, bitter for himself.  But he’d had a couple of bottles of Chinese beer and Andy had remarked that he was always happy to try something new.

Their first kiss had been inside the open door of the fridge.  Fingers gripping the two small bottles of beer, eyes locked, Peter had tilted his head just a fraction and Andy had met his mouth in a kiss more tentative than those he remembered from his school days.

They’d eaten on the sofa, cartons spread out on the glass coffee table.  Peter with his chopsticks, Andy with a fork, they’d dug in hungrily, washing it down with the fizzy Chinese brew.

Food demolished and never much for deep conversations, they’d sat in yet more heated silence until Peter had finally plucked up the courage to reach out, curl his hand around the back of Andy’s neck and move closer until their lips were touching and that second, nervous kiss quickly became their first open-mouthed neck.

That first night was as clumsy as losing their virginities.  Both of them had known the basics, obviously, but neither had ever put them into practice on another man before.  And that was all thrown in with what had almost been embarrassment that they were doing those things to each other.  They’d known one another so long, been through so much, that at times it had felt a little like being intimate with family.

But passions ran high between them, keeping them going, urging them on when they might otherwise have stopped.  And the first time Andy had seen Peter climax, the first time he’d seen his new lover’s expression, heard his cry of release, felt the hot surge of semen against his hand, he’d fallen completely and unfailingly in love.

Only Peter himself would ever make him give that up.  No one else could touch them – not the force, not Ellie, nothing.

Until Colm Mullam and Alex Waldon had involved innocent men in their damaged relationship and once again Andy had almost lost the one thing that meant the world to him.

Closing his eyes he squeezed the tears out and let them run over his face.  He drank down the whiskey in one gulp and dropped the glass carefully to the floor.

Five minutes later he was fast asleep.

~

The station was buzzing.

Once again Andy stood in front of the display boards and addressed the team who’d saved his partner’s life and the lives of unknown men who could have also been victims.

”Yesterday Colm Mullam was charged with the murders of Craig Cliffe, Ashley Peek and Jeremy Brown.  He later confessed to those murders.  His ex-lover, Alex Waldon, who had split up with him and thrown him out three months prior to the first murder, was charged with the abduction of Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe.  He’s also confessed.  It was a game to them.  Mullam killed Brown – his landlord – just to see if ‘e could.  Once he’d got a taste for it, ‘e went after people connected with Waldon.

“Waldon shared a flat with Cliffe before he met Mullam.  Last Friday night Mullam picked Cliffe up in a gay bar in town, drove ‘im back to his ‘ouse, charmed Cliffe into lettin’ ‘im tie ‘im up, then sexually assaulted him before stranglin’ ‘im with a string of anal beads.  He dumped his body that same night in the graveyard where ‘e was found.

“The next day he met Waldon in a coffee bar and showed ‘im a couple of Polaroids he’d taken of Cliffe.  Far from being disgusted as the rest of us would ‘ave been, Waldon found them exciting.  But he wouldn’t admit that to Mullam.  Instead, he made some suggestion that Mullam had had to use toys because he couldn’t keep his own excitement up for long enough, if yer get my meanin’.

“On Sunday afternoon Mullam then went and picked up Peek – Waldon’s old college professor who he’d had an affair with.  Mullam went to the university, told Peek Waldon missed ‘im and that they were wonderin’ if he’d consider a ménage a trois, just for old times sake.  Peek agreed and Waldon drove ‘im to Wetherton, charmed ‘im into bed for an auderve, tied ‘im up and raped him and beat him with a dildo before choking ‘im to death on ‘is own dick.  During all this he took pictures as evidence to Waldon that he could keep it up.  These were the pictures DC Taylor found when ‘e was searchin’ Mullam’s bedroom.

“Waldon, meanwhile, decided he could do better.  He knew Mullam had regularly played squash with a Peter because they’d argued about it.  He’d accused Waldon of having an affair with Pascoe months ago.  He arranged to meet Peter in the Savoy in York.  The night before, he drove his Land Rover to the spot on Avemoor Road where it was spotted by our Mr Hatcher on his way back from a lock in at The Sheep Dip.  Waldon walked to the bottom of the Avemoor Road and hitched a lift back into Weatherton before taking the last train to York.  He checked in to the Savoy under a different name and paid by cash.  Then he went to bed and the next morning Peter met him in the hotel bar at 7.

“He told Peter he thought his ex-boyfriend was killin’ people and he could prove it – which was the truth – but he gave him a made-up name and spun ‘im some story about bein’ too scared to go back to the ‘ouse.  DCI Pascoe, being the great softie that ‘e is, fell for it, told Waldon he’d go with him and was rewarded with a crack on the ‘ead when they got out to ‘is car.”

He paused for breath.

“Waldon took him in the passenger seat of his own car back to the Avemoor Road.  When he came to, Waldon put a knife to ‘is throat, told ‘im ‘e was the one who’d killed Cliffe and threatened Pete with the same fate.  Peter’s a stubborn bugger as you all know and when he wouldn’t co-operate Waldon ‘it ‘im again.

“Somehow he managed to get Pete into the back of the Land Rover and drove them to ‘is parents cottage just outside Balach.  Once there, ‘e dragged Peter into the garage where we found ‘im three days later.  And it’s thanks to you all that we did.  I want to thank you, and I know DCI Pascoe does too.  You all saved ‘is life and I for one am grateful for that.  You’ve also taken a monster off the streets.  Yer should all be proud of yerselves.  And I’d like to show my appreciation by buying you all a drink, so this afternoon you’ll find my credit card behind the bar of The Bull.  Try not to bankrupt me!”

A general murmur erupted unexpectedly into a round of applause.


Andy didn’t make it to the pub.  He’d put a limit on the spend on his card anyway, but it was high enough to buy Wetherton’s finest a good few drinks each – for those able to sup.

He picked Peter up from the hospital at lunchtime and took him home.

And after a little coaxing Peter got him into bed and they made love.

Afterwards, Andy lay on his side with Peter spooned up against him, caressing his lover’s thick hair and smooth skin, mapping the bruises he’d received from Waldon’s rough handling.

“That had better not be guilt goin’ through that head o’yours, Andy,” Peter warned him softly after a time.

”Nothin’ of the kind,” Andy retorted.  “Just thinkin’… I’ve told yer this before but you were sleepin’ until the influence of the good stuff at the ‘ospital so it doesn’t really count.  I want yer to move in wi’ me.”

Peter turned over, battled a moment of frustration over the pain in his hands, and finally settled again, supported by his elbows, looking ay Andy for a long time.

“So yer can keep an eye on me?”

“Nah, lad.  And I know what yer thinkin’.  But life’s too short.  I know I’ve only got a limited time wi’yer, especially if yer keep goin’ gallivantin’ off for car chases and to meet strange men in ‘otel bars.”  He smiled, aiming to pacify.  “I know we see a lot of each other.  But we should see less now you’re a Chief Inspector – you’ll be SIO your own cases – and I want to share the other side of yer life too.  I mean… I’m not asking for yer ‘and in marriage or owt, I’m not suggesting mahogany….”

Stretching up, Peter silenced him with an open-mouthed, tongue-filled kiss and when he lifted his head he said, “I’ll give some thought to movin’ back in, fer good this time.  But I was thinking about monogamy even if you weren’t.  Why should I want to go chasin’ anyone else, Andy, when I’ve got everythin’ in you?”

“Well… I was thinkin’ you might not be ready to give up women permanently….”

“Why would I want that kind of hassle?”

Andy ran his big hand lovingly over Peter’s tousled hair.  “They’re not all the bother your Ellie was, yer know.”

“The ones I’ve known have been.”  He settled himself down, head against Andy’s shoulder.  “I need some sleep.  If you want to get to work….”

“Not for a while, Sunbeam.”  Andy too closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.  “Later, mebbe….”

For a while Peter lay awake, listening to Andy’s soft snores, thinking how comforting they were, how safe he felt.  He’d spent the majority of his confinement thinking about Andy, about what the older man meant to him now.

However sure he was willing to give himself over to Dalziel once and for all, he wasn’t sure he was ready to give what little freedom the flat offered him.  Any regrets he had about staying in the UK when Ellie had gone to the states, any thoughts he’d had about quitting before the job took over his life, they had all vanished in Waldon’s makeshift prison.

He’d wished he was at work.  He’d wished he was on the other end, searching for a missing man who wasn’t him.  He wouldn’t have wished his ordeal on his worst enemy but at the same time he wouldn’t have chosen it for himself either.

His hands and feet were hurting and carefully he got out of bed and hobbled to the kitchen where he’d left the painkillers the hospital had sent him home with.

It was light outside, only mid-afternoon.  He stood in the centre of his kitchen and looked around him, suddenly overwhelmed by relief.  His hands were trembling and with the additional handicap of the bandages it took him over five minutes to press two pills out of the packet and fill a glass with water.  He spilt most of it down his front but he at least managed to get the painkillers inside him.

When he looked up, Andy was standing in the lounge, stark naked, watching him with a mix of sympathy and amusement.

”Yer could ‘ave asked me to get you those.”

“I can manage.”

“Never said you couldn’t.  But yer could ‘ave still asked me to get them for yer.  Come on, Twinkle Toes, back to bed with yer.”  Sliding his arm around Peter’s waist, he helped his lover back to bed and stayed awake until Peter’s breathing finally evened out and he slept.


fin

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