Blue On Blue

by Dal Maclean

  Despite Will’s best efforts, heat flooded his face. He was mortifyingly sure that his flush of pleasure was visible even on his olive skin. Her approval still meant something. It meant a lot.

  “It was a mistake to let you go in the first place,” Hansen added quietly.

  “I quit,” Will said. “No one could’ve talked me out of it.”

  Hansen shrugged. “So how’re you fitting in?”

  The crowd shifted in front of them, and by serendipity, a little tableau presented itself: Ingham and her husband, talking with James’s father, the tall, sternly handsome Sir Magnus Henderson—a take-no-prisoners global businessman, a celebrity, a knight of the realm. But together, the three of them looked comfortable.

  “It’s a bit like a family,” he said. That I’m not really part of.

  His reputation from his first stint at the Met had gone before him, so he’d been welcomed into the unit with respect. He had a burgeoning friendship with James Henderson. He’d even got to transfer in his own former sergeant, Des Salt. But he still felt like an outsider; nose pressed against the glass.

  “They’re a close team,” Hansen agreed, and Will realized she’d been studying the same interactions. “But when Jo Ingham moves up, it’s going to change. You know that third pip’s yours, if you want it.”

  Will’s stomach tensed. “It should go to James,” he protested weakly. But excitement was part of the mix. “Or someone else with uninterrupted . . . .”

  “James knows it’s too soon for him. And you were being fast-tracked to DCI when you left. I told you it was on the cards before you came back. Anyway, James’d like it to be you. So would Jo.”

  Will turned to stare at her. “They would? You asked them?”

  Hansen raised impeccably plucked eyebrows and her mouth twitched with amusement. “It may have come up in conversation.”

  Will allowed himself to relax enough to smile at her.

  Hansen blinked. “Tom’s not here with you?” she asked. It sounded oddly abrupt, almost harsh.

  Will blinked back.

  He didn’t know why he felt thrown.

  Except, she’d never directly referred before to his relationship to Tom Gray. Will had assumed it was of no interest to her.

  “He’s been held up in LA. He’s been doing a couple of big shoots.” Armani fragrance and Ralph Lauren, two of the biggest contracts Tom had kept on after he’d withdrawn from full-time modeling to pick up his postponed postgraduate degree.

  “That’s a shame,” Hansen said.

  Tom’s apologetic text had arrived the previous night in fact, while Will was on duty at the station. It hadn’t helped his mood.

  Nor had the photograph that had arrived in the early hours from an unknown U.S. number, of Tom sitting on a bench in T-shirt and jeans, with his arms folded over his chest, legs straight and ankles crossed, head slumped to his left, asleep. Another man sat beside him in a mirrored position, also fast asleep and propped against Tom, their heads touching. It looked intimate, and it had made Will’s stomach roll.

  “You know, I had no idea you fancy men too,” Hansen remarked.

  It took Will a full couple of seconds to accept that she’d actually said it.

  His reply was deliberately cool, “There was no reason to advertise it.”

  Hansen gave a slow, considering moue. “Have you told him?”

  Will thought he should probably be less surprised that she’d finally asked, than that she’d waited so long to secure her own back.

  He allowed himself no expression, certainly not the uneasy nervousness he felt. The slight hollow of sickness in his belly.

  “I wouldn’t be the only one affected,” he said. He looked away again into the crowd.

  It was just . . . an old, pointless secret that wasn’t only his and meant nothing. Though that wasn’t really why he hadn’t told Tom. At first it had been none of Tom’s business. Then Will’d had too much to lose to risk rocking an already dodgy boat.

  He’d been a young PC not long out of university, drafted in with a colleague to escort the then-Commander Hansen on a trip to Ireland. And he hadn’t stood a chance. She’d turned the considerable force of her professional and personal charm on him, and he’d gone under, dazzled. It hadn’t mattered that she was fifteen years older and a superior officer. She was strong, sexy, self-possessed, talented at her job and in bed. A fascinating woman all round.

  Of course, he’d worried in his saner moments about the consequences for both of their careers, but he hadn’t resisted her invitation to keep the affair going when they got back to London, meeting secretly at her flat. She’d told him she was separated, childless, and her soon-to-be ex-husband lived in the country.

  It had felt real to him. As if there was a genuine connection between them.

  Until one day, he’d heard canteen gossip about the blind eye the top brass turned to the rumors surrounding Hansen—her serial flings with young officers. The husband she successfully kept in the dark. She was police royalty—her father was a retired, highly successful chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers. So, the canteen consensus had been that she was bulletproof.

  Will had listened and understood what he was to her.

  He’d ended their fling in a flurry of recrimination that Hansen had treated like a childish tantrum, as if it were appallingly gauche of Will to make a fuss about her marital status. And her easy acceptance when he didn’t go back—never contacting him again, never interfering with his career in payback or in remorse, not even when he left the Met, depressed and raging and ashamed—it had proved to him how little the episode had meant to her.

  There had been no hard feelings for her. No deep emotion at all.

  Will sensed that Hansen had turned to look at him, but he kept his own gaze fixed straight ahead. Across the room Pez spotted him, gave his uniform an exaggerated once-over and snapped off a mocking salute.

  “I appreciate your discretion,” Hansen said. She sounded subdued. Then: “Does he make you happy?”

  Will turned his head to look at her with disbelief. “Does your husband make you happy?”

  Their eyes locked for challenging beats of silence. Will couldn’t decipher her expression.

  He wrenched his gaze away again, torn between defensive anger and unnerved bewilderment, and at that moment a tall man in a black tux and a wing-collared shirt emerged from the crowd to stand in front of them. Will took him in—glowing navy blue eyes, a luscious mouth, pale gold skin and long silky dark curls.

  Will thought he was probably half in love with Ben Morgan, but so was just about everyone who knew him.

  “Fucking hell!” Ben exclaimed. “Please tell me Jamie has a uniform like that?”

  Will didn’t get a word out before he was yanked into a powerful hug. He hugged back just as hard, beyond relieved that unnerving conversation with Hansen had been interrupted.

  When they broke apart, Will grinned. “Congratulations. Sorry I missed the speeches.”

  “Be glad.” Ben beamed. “And you had more important things to do. Honestly, Will, you look incredible in that!” Then he obviously noticed Hansen, also in uniform, and without missing a beat he added: “And so do you.”

  Will suppressed a snort of amusement. “AC Christine Hansen, Ben Morgan. It’s his party too.”

  Hansen tilted her head. “Ben Morgan?” She sounded almost fascinated, as if she’d suddenly been confronted by a rare species. And at the same moment Ben seemed to properly take her in too, and to register her badges of rank.

  The silence stretched too long.

  “To think Jamie just wanted a few beers down the pub,” Will tried.

  Ben visibly forced his focus back to him. And that disconnect was unnerving, because Ben was one of the most effortlessly charming and socially relaxed people that Will had ever met.

  “He’s protesting too much.” Ben smiled, but it looked strained. “He’s secretly thrilled Magnus was so desperate to make a fuss.”

&n
bsp; “At least you get to go on holiday tomorrow,” Will said with too much cheer. “No one’s had leave for months.”

  “Jamie still doesn’t believe it’s not going to get whacked.” Ben sounded far too hearty as well. The conversation was like wading through mud. “Though we’re only going as far as Cornwall, just in case.”

  There was another stiff silence.

  “So, who proposed?” Hansen asked.

  “Jamie,” Ben replied. “But I’ve had rings stashed for more than two years, waiting to grow the balls to ask.” He looked away again.

  “Well. I wish you every happiness.” Hansen gave an all-encompassing social smile. “It was lovely to meet you, Ben. Will.” She nodded and withdrew, to be swallowed in the crowd.

  Ben had focused somewhere beyond Will’s shoulder. He seemed far away.

  “Where’s Jamie?” Will asked deliberately.

  Ben blinked, and he was himself again. It was like pressing a button.

  “Oh. With Alec.” He grinned. “Who’s trying to persuade him to choose someone else as best man. ‘Someone who can make a fancy speech’” Ben’s try at a Glasgow accent wasn’t bad. “Like yon Benedict Cumberbatch.”

  “Jamie knows Benedict Cumberbatch?” Will asked, impressed.

  “No,” Ben said.

  They both began to laugh, and they were still laughing when a woman slid in on Ben’s right side and tucked her arm round his.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” she exclaimed. “You look fabulous, sweetie!”

  Will put her in her late forties, tall, with a cultivated air of wealthy bohemian. Her dark hair was cropped short, with some of the tips dyed crimson, her spectacle frames were purple, and there could be no question that serious money had been involved in the long-sleeved maroon dress draped around her slightly rounded frame.

  “Catherine,” Ben exclaimed after a second’s pause, then they hugged and went through the regulation media-community double-cheek kiss of greeting. Ben fitted easily into the social milieu of the fashionable elite, just as Tom did, whereas Will had to stone-face his discomfort at all of the mwah-mwah affectation of it.

  Tom said he should be less judgmental. And he tried. But . . . .

  “New season Stella?” Ben asked.

  Catherine gave a comical ‘you caught me’ grimace. “Yes. I’m trying to rein in my conspicuous consumption but . . . .” She sighed and shrugged. What can you do? “I’m vegan now though and I’m offsetting loads of my emissions! Baby trees everywhere darling! Come to think of it, I shouldn’t really be drinking an oil tycoon’s champagne should I? But anything for you and Jamie.”

  Will began to think up swift exit lines.

  “Will,” Ben said. “This is Catherine Millar. You just escaped her clutches. Catherine, DI Will Foster.”

  Will took the woman’s outstretched hand. No diminutives, he noted automatically. No Cathie or Cat or Kate. Catherine.

  “Crimewatch,” Catherine explained. “I co-produced for a while before it got the chop. That’s how I met Jo Ingham and Jamie. And darling Ben of course.”

  “Oh,” Will said. Well, he’d guessed she wasn’t the caterer. “It finished before I came back to the Met.”

  “You work with Jamie?” Catherine asked.

  “Yep. With #hotcop himself.”

  “God,” Ben said fondly. “He really hated that.”

  “He still does,” Will said. “And they don’t let him forget it.” He grinned. “#arrestmesergeant. He bangs his head on the desk till it stops.”

  Ben gave a bark of delighted laughter but Catherine’s attention remained fixed on Will.

  “What a shame we missed you,” she said. Will’s smile faded. Her assessing stare made his jaw clench with the sudden beginnings of embarrassment. He noticed that her eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, were brown, hooded and shrewd. He got the impression of intelligence and determination hiding behind that OTT persona, like some stereotype of a media person. For a brief moment, she reminded him of Pez. “But Witness is doing much better than anyone expected,” she continued. “We’re on for the next couple of months.” And when Will didn’t respond, she said, “It’s a roadshow format.”

  “Too much of a straight old fart to talk to us now then?” A man had arrived at Ben’s left shoulder with a small group at his heels. All of them looked anxious.

  “Olly,” Ben said. His voice sounded flat, almost weary.

  Will had met the group before, he realized—Ben’s friends—on the couple of nights when he and Tom had joined Ben and James at their regular pub, the Trafalgar on King’s Road. He’d particularly noticed the guy—Oliver—on those nights because he’d looked at Ben like an addict eyeing a stash. He was very attractive of course, like all of Ben’s friends, with good bones, light brown hair and green eyes. Right now, Will was pretty sure he was on a coke high.

  Ben ran a hand back through his curls, and Oliver’s hungry eyes followed the movement.

  “You all know Will,” Ben said. “This is Catherine. She used to do Crimewatch with Jamie.”

  The group behind Oliver made impressed sounds as Catherine nodded majestically in greeting. But Oliver frowned at Will as if he’d only just registered he was there. A six-foot-one-inch policeman in uniform was hard to miss from a few feet away, but Will entirely believed Olly hadn’t noticed him. All his buzzed focus was on Ben.

  Will even knew he should be able to empathize—he’d done agonized unrequited love himself and had got the T-shirt—but something about Oliver sparked his visceral contempt. If someone didn’t return your feelings, however much it hurt, you backed away. You kept your dignity. You didn’t . . . do this.

  Did Oliver want Ben to pretend to love him? Out of guilt? Or pity? What the hell could be worse than that?

  Perhaps, he recognized with a flash of stinging self-awareness, it was just too close to home.

  Oliver had turned back to Ben as if magnetized. “We were all just saying. Steggie’d have laughed his bollocks off.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” a man in the group hissed. Glynn, Will thought. And he had the feeling that whoever Steggie was, he was a sensitive subject. “He took a few lines,” the man—Glynn—confided to Will, then his eyes widened with abject horror.

  Will suppressed a sigh.

  “Of course I did,” Oliver spat. “How the fuck else would I get through this elitist heteronormative bullshit?”

  “Oh Emily’s here!” Catherine exclaimed. “Lovely to meet you.” She gave a dazzling, fake smile of farewell and wove in between groups of chattering people, until she reached a willowy blond woman with whom she fell into animated conversation.

  “And we were going to find Jamie.” Will put a hand on Ben’s back. “Sorry,” he added with an insincere smile and propelled Ben into the crowd.

  “Fuck,” Ben breathed when they stopped on the far side of the room. “Thanks.” He gave a spasm of a smile. “Don’t mention that to Jamie.” Will held his eyes. “I don’t want him upset.”

  A few yards away, listening solemnly to Sir Ian, James Henderson looked startlingly beautiful in a black evening suit, his light hair shining like gilt under the chandeliers.

  Will watched him and wondered yet again how he could possibly have failed to notice James during his own first stint in the Met, when James had been a new PC and apparently fancied him. Some part still wondered what would have happened if he’d seen James then and got to know him. If they would have worked. If it would have felt more . . . even than himself and Tom.

  Will had always held to the rational belief that everyone had multiple potential partners, any of whom could make them equally happy. And he’d clung to that belief through the past, seismic breakup with Tom—You’ll find someone else. Someone better. You’ll forget he exists.

  But it hadn’t worked. Not for him.

  The pull had been purely superficial at first—overwhelming attraction to Tom’s beauty and intelligence; the sexual electricity between them. A bit like Hansen a
t the start, when he thought of it, with her unshakable self-belief and her power.

  But that was just . . . at first. Will had quickly succumbed to the relentless challenge Tom presented—his fanatical self-reliance, his intelligence, his courage and his prickly aloofness, his humor, his sexiness, his loyalty and instinct to kindness. His deep—always dangerous—hang-ups.

  No one else had ever come close to Tom’s impact on Will, even though he’d spent two years never wanting to see Tom again as long as they lived. The knowledge of how deep Tom’s hold went, made Will feel helpless sometimes. Apprehensive.

  “I always forget you’re bi,” Ben remarked. “Then I see you schmoozing some woman, and it all. . . .”

  “I wasn’t schmoozing,” Will said, outraged. “I was being polite to a colleague.”

  “Uh huh. You don’t even realize it. It’s almost okay, then you smile and it’s game over.”

  The hard vibration of Will’s phone in the pocket of his uniform tunic halted his indignant reply and his stomach began a Pavlovian flutter. Nerves and churning anticipation. Relief. But by the time he’d wrestled the phone out, the call had cut off, and the caller display showed “Des Salt,” Will’s DS.

  Not Tom.

  Ben peered at it and grimaced. “You’re going to be called in.” He sounded charmingly devastated.

  “Well, it’s me or Jamie,” Will pointed out.

  Ben didn’t miss a beat. “Magnus has a fleet of cars outside. Pick any one.”

  Will laughed. “You are so whipped.”

  They both looked automatically at James, still chatting to Sir Ian, one social equal to another.

  “Can’t argue,” Ben said. His expression made Will feel oddly lonely, but he kept his smile in place.

  “You’ll get better reception by the window,” Ben said. “Magnus has some weird security thing that affects the signal. But don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

  The uniform made it easier for Will to cut a path through the crowd to one of the bare, multipaned windows lining the far side of the ballroom, each with wooden shutters folded to the side.