Fic - Good Company

Bodie lowered himself into Sir William Rawley’s plush leather armchair with a loud, exaggerated sigh.  He looked around at the luxurious drawing room with practised indifference, taking note of the pricey antique furniture and the fusty old paintings of men dressed in military regalia perched smugly on fat, brown horses.  Milling about the enormous chamber were seven or eight of Sir William’s most special guests – all of them male, all middle aged, all slightly overweight and all bald.

Bodie rubbed his hand over his eyes.  What a complete bunch of arseholes.

He stretched his legs out in front of him, slouching down further in the comfortable chair.  His shoes were caked in a thin layer of dried mud, he noticed with some satisfaction.  He picked at his left shoe, crumbling the mud carelessly onto the burgundy carpet.  To his delight, a moment later he heard a nasal tutting sound coming from the centre of the room and then the low, disgusted whispering of two of the mouldy old farts in the corner who had witnessed his vulgarity.

He grinned to himself and decided to wipe at his nose with his shirt sleeve for good measure. 

The polite clinking of brandy glasses by the door drew his attention to Cowley, who was standing with a drink in one hand and a fat, round cigar clasped in the other.  Sir William Rawley genially puffed the thick smoke from his own cigar into Cowley’s face as he chuntered away at him, his red face beaming with satisfied delight.  Bodie picked at his nose again.  Sir William certainly had a lot to be happy about.  Thanks to CI5, he still had a son and he still owned half of Berkshire.  The aristocracy lived to fight another day. 

Bodie rose from his chair and sauntered around the room, stopping at a neat glass bookcase standing against the far wall.  He peered at the manuscripts on offer, all bound in different shades of green and red leather and with shiny gold typeface glittering on their spines.  He pressed his nose closer to the glass, straining to read the titles.  The Collected Sermons of The Very Reverend Charles Cooper.  In ten volumes.   Bodie shuddered.  A discourse upon the Pelagian controversy; The Compleat Writings of St Augustine of Hippo…

The Compleat Writings of St Augustine of Hippo?  Bodie sighed quietly to himself.  Really, what a bunch of complete and utter arseholes.

He spun round quickly when he saw Sir William and Cowley approaching him through the reflection in the glass bookcase. 

“Everything ok, Sir?”

“Everything’s just fine, thank you Bodie.  Young Edward will be quite safe here, and Sir William is very grateful to you for your assistance.” 

Bodie’s fingers were grasped firmly in a crushing handshake.  “Yes, thank you, thank you, son.”  Sir William pumped Bodie’s hand up and down enthusiastically.  “You don’t know what it means to me, you really don’t.  Only son, and all that.  We’ve always been rather protective of him, worried about him dreadfully after he moved to London.  But a kidnapping plot...”  Sir William shuddered.  “Terrible, just terrible.”  He relinquished Bodie’s hand in order to take a long puff of his cigar.  His hands were shaking as he inhaled greedily.  “You will find the last of those swines, won’t you?  The one that’s gone to ground?  I won’t be able to sleep soundly until they’re all accounted for.”

Bodie took the empty brandy glass from Sir William’s trembling hand.  “We’ll find him.  My partner’s on to him right now.  There aren’t that many places he can hide.”  He waggled the glass in front of Sir William.  “Can I get you another one?” 

Sir William shook his head.  “You help yourself, though, son.  Please, help yourself.” 

Bodie made his way to the drinks cabinet with relief.  A fierce, bald headed man with a moustache straight out of the 1890’s glared at him as he paced across the room.  Bodie smiled back at him cheerfully, and added a quick wink just for the hell of it.  He poured himself a healthy glass of brandy and gulped it down, eyeing up a large tray of food that had appeared on a side table.  God, he was starving.

He negotiated his way across the room to the food, which was sitting beautifully on the polished silver tray.  Each tiny item was neatly wrapped and daintily presented, with absolutely no indication of what any of it was.  A bundle of items made up of pinkish looking paste occupied one corner of the tray, and on the other far end was a selection of objects that were yellow and grey in colour, with dry green leaves sticking out of them.  His stomach rumbled loudly. 

He reached out tentatively for the yellow and grey stuff and gave it a sniff.  He was none the wiser as to what it was.  He raised the item to his mouth just as an ancient looking butler hobbled into view in front of him. 

“Mr Bodie?”  The man’s voice almost creaked with old age.  Bodie nodded his head and took a step forward, fully alert and ready to catch the old man in his arms if he suddenly keeled over in front of him.  “Yeah, that’s me.” 

“I have a telephone message for you from someone named Raymond Doyle.”  The butler sniffed slightly at the mention of Doyle’s name, and Bodie grinned to himself.  With a bit of luck, Doyle had cranked up the Brummy accent and managed to get in a few swear words when leaving his message. 

“Mr Doyle said that he had a ‘fresh lead’ and that he was going to be at Fat Harry’s Café at about one o’ clock this afternoon.  He suggested that you might like to meet him there.”

Bodie clapped his hands together and gave a wide, happy smile.  Fat Harry’s Caff.  Cottage pie, bangers and mash.  Full English breakfast, sausage and chips…

He grinned down at the tiny butler hunched in front of him.  “Thank you, Jeeves.  Tell Baines to bring the horses round and I’ll be orf.”

The butler looked up at him blankly.  Bodie sighed and stuffed the yellow and grey food into his mouth.  Fish?  Egg?  He chewed uncertainly.

Chicken? 

He swallowed it down and made his way quickly out of the drawing room. 

*****************

The sky was grey and thunderous as Bodie swung open the door to Fat Harry’s Café.  He took a moment to stand in the doorway and breathe in the fat and grease that wafted through the murky air.  At the grubby plastic tables, customers drank dark brown tea out of chipped mugs and tucked into great piles of chips, sausages and burgers that were piled up on their plates. 

Behind the counter stood Skinny Doris, Fat Harry’s oldest waitress, dishing out a couple of runny fried eggs onto a plate, careful to keep the ash from the cigarette dangling from her mouth from falling into the food.  Bodie smiled to himself.  Bloody lovely.

A quick glance up and down the stalls told him that Doyle wasn’t there yet.  Bodie perched on one of the stools at the counter and checked the time on the cracked clock on the wall.  Half past One.  Still plenty of time for him to turn up and for Bodie to get some proper food in his stomach.

He picked up a copy of the tea stained piece of laminated card that served as Fat Harry’s menu and licked his lips appreciatively. 

“Cup of tea when you’re ready, please Doris.”  His stomach rumbled once more as he read through the contents of Wednesday’s specials, scribbled on the blackboard behind the counter.  Skinny Doris looked up from the eggs, beans and chips she was now preparing and wiped her hands on the tea towel hanging from her pocket.  “Here you go, love.”  She picked up a mug from near the sink and gave it a quick wipe with the same tea towel before dropping a teabag into it and filling it with hot water.  She placed a half full bottle of milk and a crusty sugar bowl on the counter and returned to the bacon she had sizzling in a pan. 

Bodie slurped the tea down noisily and gazed longingly at the greasy fry up as Doris scurried past him with a plate full of food.  She returned to the counter and plucked a pencil from behind her ear.  “Yes love?”

“Double egg, bacon and chips, please.”  He double checked the menu.  “With sausages.  And beans.” 

Doris lit up another cigarette and set about cracking the eggs into the pan. 

Bodie swivelled around in the stool and watched the door, waiting for Doyle to arrive while Doris prepared his food.  The clock ticked slowly towards a quarter to two with still no sign of him.  

The smell of crisp, fried bacon brought his attention back to the counter top, where a pile of hot food was deposited in front of him along with a mis-matched knife and fork.  He picked them up eagerly and cut into the food, lifting a dripping piece of fried egg to his mouth.

“Oi, Bodie.”  Fat Harry appeared at the doorway, swinging his portly frame around the other side of the counter.  “Your mate was in here earlier.  The poncey one with the stupid hair.” 

Bodie snorted into his cup of tea.  “Yeah?  I was just waiting for him.”  He cut himself a healthy slice of sausage and dipped it in the egg yolk.

“He said you’d be round.  Said to tell you, he thinks they’re ‘closing in on him’, whatever the hell that means.  Wants you to call him on the radio.”  Fat Harry leaned over the counter and helped himself to a chip.  “He said it was urgent.  Said you need to get hold of him straight away.”

Bodie groaned and put down his knife and fork.  “Urgent, eh?”  Fat Harry nodded, and pulled Bodie’s plate towards him.  Bodie looked at the retreating food mournfully and pulled out his wallet, dropping a couple of pound notes on the counter top while Harry tucked in greedily.  “Oh, there was something else, as well.”  Harry’s voice was muffled by a mouthful of bacon.  “He said you’d pay for the pasty and chips he had for lunch.” 

Bodie narrowed his eyes silently and dropped another quid on the counter, opening the door and stepping out into the drizzle.  Bloody Doyle. 

*************************

The grey, rumbling sky had erupted into a full downpour by the time Bodie made his way down the back alleyway behind Finson Street.  According to base, the last would-be kidnapper had gone to ground and was holed up in a shit hole of a hovel opposite Number 4, which had subsequently been appropriated by CI5.  Another day, another stakeout. 

Bodie pulled up his collar as the rain pounded down, ducking his head down against the deluge.  Bloody Doyle, he was probably already at the stakeout, enjoying a nice cup of tea and flicking through The Sun.  Bodie winced as a large drop of rain trickled down the back of his neck.  If he got pneumonia, then Sir William sodding Rawley would be paying for his private healthcare. 

The sky was almost black with rain clouds as Bodie approached the back gate to Number 4 as quietly as he could, his shoes squelching wetly and icy rain dripping from the tip of his nose.  All in all, he couldn’t see how this day could possibly get any worse.

He was about to reach out and draw back the catch on the gate when he heard a muffled shout, and looked up to see a tall figure running towards him out of the slanting rain.  He was carrying something in his hand, a glint of metal that gleamed in the rain, and he was running at full pelt down the alley right towards Bodie. 

Blinking the raindrops out of his eyes, Bodie tucked himself in against the wall, listening for the wet splash of the man’s footsteps as he hurtled towards him.  As the steps grew louder, Bodie took a deep breath and braced himself.  He listened carefully to the frantic steps, launching himself away from the wall and slamming his fist firmly into the man’s face as he ran past, his forward momentum knocking them both to the ground.  Bodie landed with a splash.

Well, just - bollocks.

A pair of strong arms lifted him from the muddy puddle.  “Hey, good one, Bodie.  You got him, he’s out cold.”  McCabe prodded the unconscious man with his foot.  “Thank god for that.  Stakeout’s over, we all get to go home.  Sir William will be happy.”  He nudged Bodie in the ribs.  “You never know, you might get a reward.”

Bodie flexed his bruised knuckles tentatively and wiped the rain from his face.  “Will someone please tell me where the bloody hell Doyle is?”…

*************

“You would not believe the day I’ve had.  Honestly, I think Cowley gets some kind of kick out of torturing us sometimes.  And I don’t know where you thought you were all day, it would have been useful to have you around some of the time, you know.”  Doyle’s voice floated through from the kitchen as Bodie lay sprawled on the sofa, sipping at a beer.  “I mean, there I was traipsing all over bloody London looking for that little toe-rag, one duff lead after another, while you were living it up with Sir William and enjoying his best brandy.” 

Doyle poked his head round the door.  “Oi, are you even listening to me, cloth-head?” 

Bodie closed his eyes and snuggled down into the soft cushions.  “I’m listening.  You had a bad day.”

Doyle sniffed and retreated back into the kitchen.  “Bad day doesn’t even cover it, mate.  And don’t even get me started on the paperwork.  Do you know how many forms you have to fill in for…”

Bodie smiled happily to himself and let the familiar sound of Doyle’s voice drift over him as he was lulled into a light doze, the beer still held loosely on his stomach.  If he could only catch a few, short minutes of much needed rest.

He was woken up when Doyle shoved his head to one side to allow room for him on the sofa, settling himself down on one end and then resting Bodie’s head on his lap.

“… know Mac’s alright, but he can still be a right tosser sometimes, honestly I swear I was going to throttle him with my bare hands, and I’d only been in the room with him for half an hour.”  He plucked the can of beer from Bodie’s hand and took a sip.  “Ugh, this beer’s warm.”  There was a disgusted choking sound from somewhere above Bodie’s head.  Bodie grinned, but didn’t open his eyes. 

Doyle set the can of beer down on the floor, still sputtering in protest at the offending drink.  “Bloody typical, after the day I’ve had.”  His hand wandered idly through Bodie’s hair, playing with the strands between his finger and thumb.  Bodie stretched out along the sofa and turned his head so that Doyle’s fingers could make their way down towards the nape of his neck. 

There was a short, sharp tug on his ear and Doyle’s fingers stopped their caress. 

“… said, where were you all day, anyway.  I missed you.  I hope your day was better than mine, anyway.” 

Bodie smiled drowsily.  “Yeah, I heard you, mate.  I heard you.”  He linked his fingers with Doyle’s and rested them on his chest, just under his chin.  Doyle’s other hand resumed its rhythmic stroking of his hair, soothing him into a gentle doze once more.  Bodie dropped a sleepy kiss on the back of Doyle’s knuckles.  “Actually Ray, my day turned out pretty well in the end…”