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Necessities taken care of, he poured himself a good drink. Doctor’s warnings or no, there would be no half-measures tonight.
The grey static at the beginning of the tape shuddered into a still shot of a room and Cowley recognised the flicker of surveillance footage.
Although it was after sunset and the room was lit only by streetlight it was possible to make out a sparely furnished but comfortable living room. The camera focused on a two-seater sofa and in the background, a door leading to a kitchen stood open.
Cowley brought his briefcase from the study to his own living room. He had decided to let the tape play through without continually getting up to fast-forward. He would use the time when the surveilled room was dark and empty to work through paperwork from the recently concluded kidnap operation.
He sighed as he drew a bulky file from his case. His operatives grumbled about the reports they had to write but they had no comprehension of the typescript jungle he had to fight through each time one of them kicked down a door or fired a gun.
He had been working for no more than fifteen minutes when the first recorded noise on the tape caused him to look up from his paperwork. It was the sound of a key in a lock.
He had asked Murphy to start recording when Bodie finished work. His last task had been to ensure the rescued minister’s security for the night and it had been after nine when he finally radioed in he was heading for home.
Cowley heard the familiar sound of glass and liquid. Then Bodie, still in his grey leather jacket, came into his living room, drink in one hand and a few days worth of post in the other. He switched on the light and swallowed a mouthful of scotch before putting his glass down on the coffee table. He sorted through the post and finding none of it worth opening, discarded it. Then he went to the window to draw down the blinds.
He came close to the concealed camera as he stood by the window and Cowley saw exhaustion in the handsome features. Which was hardly surprising, an unforgiving few days were ending for Bodie. As intense and brutal as they come. He had worked sixty hours without a break, any sleep grabbed in the back of the car while his partner bumped from pothole to puddle following false leads down country lanes.
Bodie regarded the sofa with speculative interest but evidently deciding he had better not get too comfortable, he left the room.
While he was gone, Cowley read through the report on the kidnapping Bodie had dutifully handed in. He was familiar with the plain, no-nonsense prose. No judgements or assessments. A simple statement of facts as personally observed or reported to him. Designed, no doubt, to get the paperwork over and done with as quickly as possible.
‘I radioed my location to Control and approached Meadow House,’ Bodie wrote. ‘I was restrained by three unknown men and my gun taken.’
This was factual reporting taken to the extreme. The attackers had stopped short of killing Bodie but left him unconscious, disabled his RT and tied him by his hands and feet with wire.
Another twenty minutes passed until the video showed Bodie’s return to his living room. He had changed into black tracksuit bottoms and his hair was wet and spiked from a shower. He had brought a first aid kit with him.
Even the less than perfect quality of the video revealed a colourful array of cuts and grazes across his bare torso. Wide livid bruising spread down his right side and his wrists were cut and raw from where he had tried to escape his restraints.
Bodie disappeared into one of the corners the camera did not reach and switched on the TV. The sound of a documentary filled the room. He sat on the sofa, wincing as the movement agitated bruised ribs.
Cowley was surprised at how bad the injuries were. He had not noticed Bodie showing any sign of pain after he had been found and checked over by Doyle. Not that he would have expected any of his agents to make a fuss over a few superficial injuries.
He went back to his paperwork while Bodie cleaned his wounds and dressed the worst of the cuts. This was not why he had ordered a hidden camera to be placed in Bodie’s flat. He did not habitually intrude on his operatives’ privacy, no matter what they thought of him.
But after six years working with Bodie and Doyle, when he had suspected neither of anything other than unforgivable insubordination, what had made him give the surveillance order to Murphy? Curiously, he was not exactly sure.
Having finished tending to his wounds Bodie eased himself out of his seat, swearing quietly at the latest flash of pain. He left the room, taking the kit and his glass with him. He returned a few minutes later having put on a sweatshirt, topped up his drink and, judging by the clatter coming from the kitchen, decimated a sandwich.
A whole hour passed where Bodie demonstrated his unique capacity for stillness. Settling on the sofa, he moved only fractionally to drink or glance at the clock. He did not even fall asleep as even the most alert and refreshed person might in the face of the dry documentary about post-war Vietnam he had chosen to watch. In fact there was a watchfulness about him, an air of someone alert to impending danger. As if he had not fully understood he was off duty.
Cowley worked through his reports, enjoying Bodie’s stoical company. He often used the silent hours of late evening to complete the tasks interrupted by the imperatives of the day. An evening like this, free of the demands of active operations, meetings or emergencies almost counted as relaxation.
Almost. Fifteen CI5 agents had been involved in the operation to locate and free the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Number 10 had been involved, as had Special Branch, the army and the other security services. The kidnappers themselves, both those alive and those recently dead, were also generating their share of paperwork. Cowley’s job was to bring these strands together, build a case, draw conclusions, make recommendations.
He was good at this type of cerebral work and, at his age, he was content to leave most of the physical action to the younger men and women. Then again, he was not ready to give up fieldwork completely. Which was how he came to be following Doyle into the grounds of Meadow House yesterday afternoon.
Cowley glanced at the television screen. Bodie had not moved and so far his evening was as quiet and solitary as Cowley’s own. Cowley would have been more than happy had it stayed that way but, as he was about to return to his reading, he heard the sound of another key opening Bodie’s front door.
Even though Bodie was officially the sole occupant of the flat Cowley was not surprised to see Ray Doyle appear in the doorway to his living room.
Doyle looked like he had been dragged through the proverbial hedge backwards and then pushed through it the other way for thoroughness. His irredeemable scruffiness had hit a new low, and his bearing was as expressively exhausted as Bodie’s.
He appeared to be fit only for a long sleep but Bodie sought no explanation as to why he had turned up here instead of at his own flat, where CI5 had provided him with a perfectly serviceable bed. No explanation was given. Instead he rested a quiet smile with his partner.
“How’s the Minister?” He asked as he peeled off his flying jacket.
“Stiff upper lip back in place and armed uniforms on the doorstep,” Bodie replied. “He couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”
“Ungrateful sod.”
“Yeah, I’m voting for the other lot next time. How are the criminal masterminds?”
Doyle shrugged. “Not giving up any names. The Old Man’s planning to have them for a late supper though, so that ought to change.”
“You left him to it, 4.5?” Bodie sounded surprised.
“He sent me home.”
“Bloody hell.”
Doyle seemed equally bewildered by this. “I suppose he wanted someone in the interrogation who could keep awake.”
The talk was reassuringly shop. A conversation that could have taken place between any two CI5 agents at any time. But Doyle had been wrong. Cowley had sent him home because he wanted to know where he would go. He had come to Bodie’s place and Bodie had not needed to ask why.
“Have you eaten?” Bodie asked instead.
“Yeah,” Doyle paused. “I’m fairly sure it was today. Is there any hot water?”
“Should be.”
Doyle disappeared from the camera’s range, heading for the bathroom. He reappeared a moment later.
“You haven’t seen my car, have you?” He asked. “I had to get the tube.”
“Not again, mate. I’m going to tie it to your wrist.”
“I hope it’s not in the bloody countryside,” he frowned and pushed a hand through flagging hair. Finding something he didn’t like there which then attached itself to his fingers he firmly told himself. “Shower.”
He disappeared again, leaving Bodie smiling after him. Doyle, Cowley noted, did not ask where the towels were or if he could borrow a change of clothes.
Cowley saw Bodie stand stiffly. He left the room and returned moments later with a second glass of scotch. He put it on the coffee table near his own and sat slowly back down.
He resumed his still, quiet resting, watching a film following the documentary. But something was subtly different. His demeanour had changed. It was as if he had gone through a mental clocking-off process and belatedly begun to relax.
Cowley found Doyle’s report of the op and read it for a second time.
‘Mr Cowley and nine other operatives including myself proceeded to Meadow House in West Sussex. CI5 operative Bodie had established that a known associate of the IRA suspects had rented the house under an assumed name. It was possible the Secretary of State was being held here and it had become the most likely location due to some reports of suspicious activity in the nearby village.’
In Cowley’s experience the ex-coppers on the squad always came up with a good report. Fluid, factual, logical. If you wanted to know what happened read Bodie’s statement, if you wanted to know why, read Doyle’s.
‘We located CI5 operative Bodie,’ Doyle continued. ‘He had sustained injuries from an attack by three unknown assailants and been restrained. Unfortunately we had to conclude that the occupants of the house, knowing they had been discovered, would attempt to leave. Clearly this put the Secretary of State’s life at greater risk.’
Cowley returned again to this relatively minor event in the story of the op because it was the moment he had decided to order this surveillance. But even now, when his suspicions appeared to be justified, he was still not clear why he had done so.
There were no clues in Doyle’s statement and Cowley took his glasses off to remember for himself how events had unfolded.
Bodie had RT’d from Meadow House, asking for backup and for radio silence while he tried to see what was going on inside. The CI5 squad had followed him there in three cars, with Doyle and Cowley travelling with two of the others.
By then Bodie had not been in contact for an hour but Cowley had not noticed the lack of communication causing Doyle any undue distress. In fact, he passed the drive mostly in silence, periodically tapping his RT with a restless finger.
They left the cars a short distance from the house and the other agents spread out into the grounds. Doyle pointed out a small barn used to store firewood, and Cowley followed him along the back of some empty stables to get to it.
This was where they found Bodie. He had regained consciousness and called ‘Oi,’ to draw their attention. Cowley recalled Doyle’s angry hiss when he saw his partner.
“They haven’t left,” Bodie said without bothering to explain how he came to be bound and beaten up. “But they keep coming out to the van and it looks like they’re getting ready to bolt.”
Seemingly oblivious to the escalating urgency of the situation Doyle carefully unwound the stiff wire binding Bodie’s hands and feet. Bodie’s wrists had been cut in his own attempts to escape and the only time Cowley had seen Doyle more meticulous and sure was when he was diffusing bombs.
“Get a move on,” Bodie snapped.
“Keep your shirt on, Houdini,” was the focussed reply.
When he was finished he wiped blood from his hands on to his jeans and helped Bodie sit up.
Then Doyle began to examine the footprint shaped mark on Bodie’s forehead. He looked at his pupils, asking him if he felt dizzy or nauseous. His quick hands checked Bodie for other injuries, finding the bruising already starting on his ribs, the blood sticking his shirt to his chest.
“He’s all right, he was just having a kip down there,” Doyle concluded. He hauled his partner to his feet steadying him as he regained his footing after having his ankles bound for so long.
The familiar touch had not alerted Cowley. He was used to this generation of operatives constantly interfering in one another’s personal space, in a way his own tended to desperately avoid.
Neither was it the quick, silent transmission of reassurance Cowley saw pass between the two of them.
Doyle gave Bodie a spare gun he had produced from his belt and the two of them were ready for the action unfolding less than a minute later.
The tape rolled on a while longer before Doyle came back into the living room. He had changed into an old grey tracksuit and a towel was slung around his shoulders catching drips from wet hair. The shower had done little to revive him and he came in mid-yawn.
“Cheers,” he said picking up the drink Bodie had poured for him. He rested an assessing gaze on Bodie, gentler than the one he had allowed himself out in the field. “Did you get yourself checked out? Get that head looked at?”
“Yeah, no problem. The Doc didn’t find anything.”
Doyle paused to decide whether he believed him and evidently decided he did. “Doesn’t surprise me. Little marble-sized thing rattling around in that big head, but what about concussion?”
Cowley smiled at the joke despite himself.
Doyle began to dry his hair with the towel, turning to the TV and tiredly trying to absorb what he saw there. He turned when Bodie reached out and took his hand and he was pulled down onto the sofa.
Cowley watched as Doyle leaned in and kissed Bodie. Bodie’s arms went round him and Doyle raked easy fingers through his hair. Slow and deep, the kiss seemed to charge the air with electricity until Cowley expected to see lines of interference appearing on the television screen he was watching.
He had not seen this before but he had seen other things. Communications in word and touch more carefully coded than this, concealing or misdirecting the unlikely truth. He was surprised to find himself unsurprised.
When the kiss ended and Cowley had begun to think it would outlast the tape, Bodie patiently allowed Doyle to lift his sweatshirt to look at his other injuries.
“Vicious.”
“Its not as bad as it looks,” Bodie claimed. “Anyway, what’s this?”
He drifted light fingers across the bruises Doyle had sustained slamming through a door and hitting concrete floor going after the last of the kidnappers.
Was this a nightly ritual? Cowley wondered as they made peace with a day that had almost separated them permanently. As their most ordinary days often did. The touch was intimate and sensual and woven with kisses. Cowley was finding it all a little unsettling. Which served him right, of course.
“Forget it, mate,” Bodie said as Doyle’s body language took a more erotic turn. “I couldn’t get an umbrella up.”
Doyle pulled Bodie’s head against his chest and held him there. Cowley watched them, gently in one another’s arms and wondered what on earth he should do about this.
Doyle slipped down to sit on the floor by Bodie to finish drying his hair and Bodie took the towel from him and began a lingering massage.
“Isn’t it time you got this hedge clipped back?” he said though his touch was as reverent as if he were handling spun gold.
“I don’t want to upset the family of sparrows, do I,” Doyle returned but he let his eyes close and his head fall back.
Cowley began to understand. The working partnership, even the friendship existed in the tangible world of words. The silly banter was available for anyone who happened to be listening. This secret he was witnessing was more precious. Words could only endanger it, a habit of silence protected against an accidental slip. He doubted they had even said ‘I love you’.
It was love though. Plainly. An intangible existing in an awareness of one another so acute Doyle could find Bodie in the acres of land around Meadow House without even knowing he was looking for him. Cowley realised this was what had alerted him. This was what finally, after possibly years, had shown him there was more to this partnership than five standard senses.
This was not basic, practical CI5-issue telepathy. These were not mysteries of the heat of battle, these were mysteries of another kind.
Hair dried now and bouncing back in a way it’s owner was failing to, Doyle collapsed gracelessly back on to the couch. Bodie reached his arm round Doyle’s shoulder and tried to bring him close.
“Hang about, ace.” Doyle moved round to Bodie’s left side, clear of both their bruising.
“Clever.” Bodie brought Doyle near again. This time Doyle relaxed against him, drink lazily in hand, head at home on the broad shoulder.
“You know when you went to the Northern Ireland Office today?” Doyle asked after they had watched the film in silence for a while.
“Yeah.”
“Did you see my car there?”
“I was looking for the Northern Ireland Secretary, not your flaming Capri.”
“Bloody genius that,” Doyle deflected with sleepy good humour. “Wasn’t that the one place we knew he wasn’t?”
Fingers weaving through irresistible curls, stopped to give a nearby ear a tug and Doyle shifted to kiss Bodie’s lips.
Doyle fell asleep first, his drink still in hand. Moments later Bodie’s eyes closed too. They were still that way when the tape came to an end.
Cowley imagined eventually one of them would stir. He would wake the other, quite gently he supposed, and take him by the hand to bed.
They had reported in by eleven the next morning. He recalled finding Doyle, PG Tips in hand and Bodie blinking at the kettle at around that time. Bodie was intoning place names; Stockwell Road, Red Lion Square, Kilburn High Street and Doyle was shaking his head unhappily. Och, damn car. He had wondered what that was about when they evaded his enquiry.
Neither of them had looked fully awake but there was paperwork and interviews and follow-up leads before a couple of days leave could be thought of. They were hard workers, the both of them. The rest of the kidnap squad were on the missing list until the afternoon and no one blamed them. These two would keep working until they couldn’t anymore. He wondered what might stop them in their stride. One obvious thing sprung to mind.
Cowley, the keeper of secrets, rewound the tape to the beginning. Switched to the BBC test card and set the video to record.
It was late now so he put away his paperwork and began to make preparations to go to bed.
end
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