Chapter 2
James had know when he had signed up to be a police officer there were some things he was going to have to see that he would later regret, but this, he decided, was something that was going to stay with him for the rest of his life.
He hadn’t really taken the chance to look around the court room as he’d come in, after all, he’d been in here many times before over the few years he had been in active service and there was no one he hadn’t seen before. Everyone around here knew everyone else, and so the jury would be no one new.
“I call to the stand, PC James Martin.”
James stood shakily and made the few steps to the platform, not really wanting to relive what he’d seen in the hallway those few days ago.
“PC Martin, could you tell the jury what happened when you arrived at number 10, lakefield drive three days ago?”
James nodded his head and swore his oath upon the bible before he ceased his fidgeting and took a relaxed to attention pose.
“I was given the message of a disturbance, screams and yelling in particular at mid day-“
“You’re sure it was mid day?”
“I am. I was on my way to the canteen, but there was no one else available so I went.”
“Carry on.”
“I arrived at the house at 12:15 and knocked on the door. When there was no answer I went around the back and found the back door unlocked. I entered via the back door, announcing my presence as usual and stepped into the kitchen. Having determined there was no one in the kitchen or the adjoining dining room I opened the door and stepped into the hall to the front door.”
He took a deep breath and looked down momentarily. “At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. To be honest I thought someone had exploded a tin of paint in the hall, but then I realised it was blood. Billy was lying on the floor, propped against the wall next to the open cupboard door as though he had been pulled from it and thrown against the wall. He was bleeding from a shallow flesh wound to the back of his head but also from a deep stab wound to his stomach. Mr Wells was crouched over him stabbing him repeatedly, muttering that he wished Billy had never been born and the divorce was his entire fault. He was drunk and seemingly oblivious to the fact that his first stab wound had severed Billy’s spine, killing him.”
The white-wigged judge nodded, “thank you. You may sit.”
James returned to his seat and sat in complacency while the forensics report was given. He only really noticed anything abnormal when the defendant was called forth.
“I call to the floor the defendant’s lawyer, Mr Lucas McKenzie.”
A ripple went around the room, a new lawyer? He wasn’t a local and everyone in the room craned their necks to catch a glimpse of this newcomer. After all, it wasn’t everyday someone new arrived in Wyrebrook.
James remained in his seat, knowing he would meet the illusive stranger afterwards as he did with all lawyers, he was however somewhat surprised that he had not met this one prior to the case being taken to court.
“Your honour, the jury, ladies and gentlemen. Many of you are or have been going through tough times recently, some of you are probably divorced yourselves, maybe some of you are even in the same boat as my defendant.”
James tuned out the speech, wondering why the man’s voice sounded familiar until a sentence caught his attention.
“Every child should be safe in their own home, but should adults not also have the same right to be safe?”
”What’s your safe word?”
James stomach flipped inside him and he was instantly awake, staring at the young lawyer, hoping against hope that he wasn’t recognised. This was the reason he always went to clubs in the cities and towns around, they were anonymous, no one knew him, but if this man had turned up here then every image he had built for himself was at risk of being destroyed before his very eyes.
Lucas McKenzie, even his name was sexy James decided as he tuned out what he was saying, just wallowing in the sound of his rich velvety voice he had the pleasure of experiencing a few nights ago. He didn’t remember much of the man’s looks as it had been dark by the time they had left and gone their separate ways, but now he had a chance to really look at him and see now what he had been deprived of seeing before.
The man was tall, possibly up to a foot taller than James himself, but then he never was really very tall, and he was muscular, not body-builder like, but hidden and dangerous beneath his skin, waiting for the chance to spring. He had sharp handsome features and burning dark eyes, a slim figure… He remembered the feeling the morning after as though he had been thoroughly beaten up as suppressed a pleasured shiver running down his spine.
So caught up in his own thoughts was he that he very nearly missed the case being closed. The defendant had lost his case to plead mentally unstable and was due to serve 15 years for pre-meditated murder. He watched tall dark and handsome walk out of the courtroom alone, head held high despite loosing his case. Glancing at the clock he nodded to the other officer who had come with him and indicated he was heading home.
***
“How did it go?”
James took the dish of mashed potatoes from his mum and placed them on the trivet in the middle of the table before sliding onto his own seat, leaving her to serve them. He nodded to his father across the table and grinned at his little sister Annabelle, who ignored him in favour of her mp3 player. He accepted a plate of fish and fried potatoes and spooned some peas onto the edge of his plate, resolute that now he was an adult he really did need to learn to like the despised green bullets.
“You know I’m not allowed to talk about court cases with you mum.”
She laughed, “everyone in this village knows everyone else’s business, we know Mr Wells was charged, we just want to know what with, and if you won’t tell us someone else will.”
He grinned and told her about the case, excluding every mention of the new lawyer other than to say he was new and that no, he hadn’t met him.
After dinner he made coffee for the three of them and handed his father the paper from the sideboard.
“Would you mind helping Annabelle with her history homework?” his mother asked as he stepped onto the bottom of the staircase.
“You know I will.” He replied.
Chapter 3
“James! Are you busy?”
James looked up as Amy came bursting into the room, knocking papers everywhere out of his neatly organised stacks.
“Well actually y-“
“Excellent! Here, show Lucas around, I’m sure you two will get on fabulously!”
“Amy I-“ He gave up as she ran out of the door leaving a rather bewildered and lost looking man there. A tall dark and handsome man with a voice like velvet chocolate… He could feel himself blushing, he just knew it. There was no way he wasn’t.
“James, wasn’t it?”
He almost moaned remembering that voice whispering his name in his ear, and he nodded, trying to keep the desk between them so Lucas wouldn’t see the growing problem he was having; a problem that Lucas was most definitely the cause of.
“So, erm, Lucas, what was it that Amy, I mean Inspector Jacobs wanted you to do with me- Me to do with you- Me to show you?” He was positive he was scarlet as he fell over his words, wondering why he hadn’t chosen what he was going to say before he said it without thinking and made himself look like an idiot.
Lucas stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him and shutting the blinds so no one could see them. “I haven’t seen you around since last week. I take it you don’t actually live in Dudley then?” He stepped around the desk with ease, closing in on the smaller man who tried to sidestep around the other side only to meet with the wall behind him.
Cornered, James looked longingly at the door, pointedly not looking at Lucas who was staring at him like a cat cornering a mouse, wishing for some form of divine intervention. His eyes were too dark, too deep, so mysterious he could drown in them, and they were getting closer, Lucas’ seductive glide across the blue carpeted floor impossible to ignore any longer. A few more steps and he would be close enough to kiss, close enough to catch the intoxicating scent he remembered.
Divine intervention came in the form of a call from the worst person possible.
“Sarah,” he whispered, before clearing his throat and answering the phone.
The whole conversation he barely heard a thing his girlfriend was saying, instead all his attention was focused on the emotions flitting across the previously confident face of the man he was sure he was at least slightly in love with.
“Love you too,” he whispered, pulling the mobile away from his ear and dropping it back into his pocket. “My girlfriend,” he said in response to the inquiring look he was receiving.
There was an awkward moment of silence, neither man wanting to voice what he was thinking, and neither willing to delve too deeply into what the other was feeling. Both simply stood, Lucas staring at James, James at the floor, his head bowed in apologetic submission.
In the end it was Lucas who broke the silence, clearing his throat softly. “I’ve just moved down here and Inspector Jacobs informed me it is tradition down here for local lawyers to be introduced to the police as we will be working closely together, as you no doubt are aware.”
James nodded mutely, blinking back the sudden moist quality that had come to his eyes. Making sure a small smile was gracing his features he looked up once more, swiping his fringe to the side, meeting the dark eyes once more. “I guess I’ll show you around then,” he said sheepishly.
Lucas nodded, hesitating in the path to the door. “I apologize for my actions earlier, I should have seen that my intentions were unwanted when you didn’t return again.”
James shook his head, “I never go to a place twice, not if I can avoid it. It’s hard here to keep anything quiet, if my parents found out…” He trailed off, looking at the floor once more.
“I see,” Lucas whispered softly, moving to the side to allow the officer past. “Shall we go then, you seem to have been given the honour of introducing me to your team.” He smiled, the confident easy smile that attracted so many to him, and opened the door onto the hall.
“After you.”
***
The end of the tour found James and Lucas once more in the small room they had met in, browsing through the files of solved and still open cases. Lucas seemed more interested in the work the police did than what he did. When asked about it, he replied that his father had been an upstanding citizen and had told him the police was not a suitable career for someone of his social standing so instead he had become a lawyer.
After a good half hour of explaining some of the local police procedures to the inquisitive lawyer, the pair made their way down to the canteen, the bond between them warping to something more akin to friends rather than the previous temporary Master/slave bond they had created. Inspector Jacobs met them there, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands and a metaphorical cloud over her head.
“How’d your meeting go?” James asked, falling ungracefully into the blue plastic chair next to his superior. She glared at him.
“That well?”
Lucas slid into a seat opposite them and handed James a cup of milky coffee, cradling his own black beverage between strong hands, graceful fingers caressing the rim, swirling the steam around.
James mentally hit himself.
“Awfully,” Amy groused, taking another swig of the scalding liquid. “The council is unhappy with the way we are budgeting ourselves and they see no point in having a police station here especially as there are only a handful of us.”
“They want to shut you down?” Lucas asked gently, setting the mug down on the table with a small chink.
“We have a week to prove that we’re needed here.”
“But we have one of the best arrest rates in the whole country!” James said, rather more loudly than was called for. “They can’t just get rid of us like some under performing corner shop!”
Amy raised an inquiring eyebrow. “And how do you propose a task force of little more than ten officers lead by an Inspector takes on the government?”
He couldn’t think of a response to that.
***
It was a very beautiful restaurant, he had to give it that, almost as beautiful as the woman sitting at the table he was heading for, so why couldn’t he feel anything but a sense of dread and remorse? Why was it that he couldn’t find any sort of romantic attachment to this girl?
Sarah smiled at him and he slid into the seat opposite her, sparing a cursory glance at the rose in the middle of the small table in a secluded candle-lit corner of the room. He had to commend her for her choice, that was true, but he couldn’t help feeling that it was a bit impractical. Lucas would have been able to find somewhere romantic and practical, and more subtle than this place.
He mentally slapped himself.
“How was your day?” He asked instead, trying to distract himself from thoughts of the other man.
She shrugged, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “The new teacher I’m shadowing is nice, she doesn’t seem to have much confidence in the children’s’ abilities to work though. And she doesn’t seem to like me being there when she’s teaching, she likes to give me things to do rather than have me in the classroom.”
Smiling she swiped a hand at his, an elegant but not large enough hand. Her nails were too long and manicured to perfection, painted a light shade of pink. “Enough about me, how was your day? I heard George saying that you’re to be shut down? Surely that’s not true?””
James laughed, “George wouldn’t know the truth if it bit his arse! We’re not going to be shut down, there’s nothing to worry about.”
A waiter came over and she released his hand, reaching up instead to take the menu she was handed. James took his, mentally commenting on how nice the young man looked in his jacket. He flicked through the pages looking for something that wasn’t French that he deemed to be edible. Why there was a restaurant like this in Dudley he didn’t know, it was more like something one would find in the middle of London, perhaps a very wealthy area of Birmingham, but not in Dudley.
