Chapter Text
Susannah Cleave was, it had to be said, furious. Not frightened — furious, which was a meaningful distinction. She sat across from Kate in the small room Morrow had arranged at the village hall, Graham hovering anxiously beside her, and radiated the particular indignation of a woman who felt that being interviewed by police was something that happened to other, lesser people.
"I want to be absolutely clear," Susannah said, in the voice of someone who had chaired many a difficult committee meeting and won all of them, "that I did nothing wrong."
"No one is suggesting you did," Kate said.
"You're suggesting I was lurking"
"I used the word observing."
"In the rain," Susannah said. "Which implies lurking."
Graham put his hand over his eyes, letting out a breath.
"Mrs Cleave," Kate said patiently, "I just need to understand what you saw and when."
Susannah straightened, which given her posture was a remarkable achievement. "Well, I saw you and your husband, in the kitchen, and I saw that you were —" She stopped, clearing her throat and collected herself, "You appeared to be in perfectly good health and conducting yourselves as a married couple might reasonably be expected to conduct themselves, and I left. Immediately."
"Of course," Kate said.
"I wasn't watching. I happened to be passing." Susannah said again, defensively.
"At midnight," Kate pointed out "In the rain."
"I couldn't sleep."
Graham made a small sound beside her that he converted, unconvincingly, into a cough when his wife glared at him.
"Why were you in the garden at all?" Kate asked.
Susannah looked, for the first time, marginally less certain. "I wanted to see if your lights were still on," she admitted, "Graham had become convinced that you were investigating something. Us, specifically. The solicitor business. I told him he was being ridiculous."
"I was not being ridiculous," Graham argued "He was asking very specific questions at dinner."
"You were asking specific questions," Kate pointed out. "He was being polite."
Graham opened his mouth and closed it again.
"And when you saw that our lights were on?" Kate asked Susannah.
"I looked in the window briefly to ascertain whether you were, in fact, awake and possibly conducting any sort of —" Susannah stopped again. "Whether the cottage was occupied."
"And?"
The faintest colour appeared on Susannah's cheekbones. "And it clearly was," she said crisply. "So I left."
"Immediately," Kate said.
"Yes," Susannah confirmed, with great firmness. "And what I can tell you, since you're asking, is that whatever Graham thought, the two of you are not investigating us. You are two people who are very obviously married."
Kate kept her face entirely neutral. "Thank you, Mrs Cleave. That's very helpful."
"The land deal," Graham said suddenly. "Is that — are we —"
"That's not our investigation," Kate said. "You'll want to speak to your solicitor."
Graham sagged slightly with relief.
"Well," Susannah said, gathering her bag. "I hope you find it all — satisfactory. The case, or whatever it's called." She stood, Graham standing with her automatically. She paused at the door, and looked back at Kate with an expression that was, very briefly, almost human. "Is she all right? Laura?"
"She's shaken," Kate assured her. "She'll be fine."
Susannah nodded once, briskly. "Good. She's a sweet girl. Rather too cheerful, but sweet."
The door closed behind them.
Kate sat in the empty room for a moment and smiled at the table, before laughing to herself.
They left the cottage at half past nine in the morning. Dalgliesh carried the bags to the car boot. The keys returned to Morrow, who would pass them on to whoever came next to deal with Hearthstone and Richard Goss and the long unhappy business of what came after. Kate stood by the car for a moment and looked at the village.
She smiled when she saw Joel and Laura coming up, paper bags in hand, laughing about something. Joel spotted the car first and his face broke into a wide, grin.
“Glad we caught you!" Joel said.
"It's a shame you're leaving," Laura said, a slight frown on her face. She had a paper bag of what smelled like pastries and she looked very well, compared to yesterday.
"We are," Kate said. "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Laura's nodded, "Joel keeps saying we should go home but I think we should stay. See it through. This village deserves people in it who aren't. frightened of it " She shook her head slightly. "We like it here. We liked you, is what I mean."
"We liked you too," Adam said, and meant it without complication.
Joel had gone to shake Dalgliesh's hand and the two of them were talking quietly by the car — Joel with his hand in his hair, nodding, the posture of a man receiving information seriously. Dalgliesh had a hand briefly on his shoulder, the same gesture Kate had seen him use the previous night, and Joel nodded again.
Laura watched them too. "He's wonderful, your husband. I think. it's really sweet that police officers marry each other." she said, "The way he was last night — Joel said he was very calm. Said exactly the right things." She looked at Kate. "You must be very used to that. Him always knowing what to say."
Kate looked at Dalgliesh by the car, his head bent slightly toward Joel's, listening in the way he did - always with the upmost attention.
"He desn't always say very much," Kate admitted.
"No, but when he does." Laura smiled. "You can see it, you know. You go very...." She gestured, searching for the word. "Quiet. Like you're relieved he's there." She said it with the simple observational pleasure of someone who found other people's happiness genuinely interesting. "I think that's the real thing. Not the grand gesture. Just relief that they exist."
Kate looked at the cobblestones, because she was convinced that Laura was psychic.
"Sorry," Laura said immediately. "I do this. Joel says I make people feel like they're being studied. That's the scientist in me.”
"You're not wrong," Kate said, which was all she could manage.
Laura beamed, and hugged her with the sudden warmth of someone who had decided this was happening regardless. Kate hugged her back. Over Laura's shoulder she could see Dalgliesh glance across and smile as he caught her eye, and look away again.
"Come and have dinner with us," Laura said, releasing her. "When we're all back in London. I mean it, I'll be unbearable if you don't. I'll tell Joel to ring Adam."
There was someone else Kate wanted to say farewell to. Lucia was at the churchyard wall.
Kate wondered if she actually slept, or simply moved between the wall and the bench above the bookshop, notebook in hand, observing the village.
She looked up as Kate approached, and the expression on her face was the particular one she wore when she had already decided something and was waiting for the world to catch up.
"You're going," Lucia said.
"We are."
"Case closed, I take it. A shame. The village will be quieter without you. It was getting rather exciting."
Kate smiled, shaking her head, “I do hope you’ll be careful Lucia."
"I'm always careful," Lucia said, “Thank you, Kate. For the advice. The other day, at the wall."
"I didn't say anything very useful."
"You said enough." Lucia glanced past her, along the lane. Her expression did the thing it did when it was trying not to do something.
Kate turned. Archie Macdonald was on the far side of the churchyard gate, stopped, hands in his jacket pockets. He had clearly been heading somewhere and clearly was no longer heading there.
"Go and talk to him," Kate encouraged. It was the first time she saw Lucia falter.
"I'm not-”
"Lucia."
Lucia looked at her, and then at Archie, and closed her notebook with a decisive snap. "Well," she said, standing. "Perhaps I'll take a turn along the lane."
"Perhaps you will," Kate agreed.
She watched Lucia cross the churchyard, watched Archie's posture change when he saw her coming. He seemed far more relaxed, relieved that she had decided he was worth talking to. Kate smiled as she watched them and felt something warm and slightly bittersweet settle in her chest.
Dalgliesh was leaning against the passenger side, arms folded, watching her come back across the lane with the expression he wore when he was thinking and had decided not to say what about.
"Joel has Laura's number somewhere," Kate said. "She wants to have dinner."
"So he told me." Adam said.
"Will you go?"
He considered this with more seriousness than the question strictly required. "Yes," he said. "I think I will. If you will.”
Kate but her lip with a smile, “To make sure you're being sociable.”
Kate looked back at the village — the tea room, the bridge, the churchyard wall where Lucia was now standing with Archie in the morning sun, their heads bent together over something in the notebook. The roses over the Hearthstone gate, very pink against the stone.
"I think I'll actually miss it," Kate said, which surprised her slightly by being true.
"Yes." Dalgliesh straightened from the car. "Though I think we've had rather enough of the Cotswolds for the time being."
Kate laughed, which she had not expected to do, and he opened the car door for her.
As they both got into the car, Kate felt that she was still wearing the ring.
She would have to take the ring off eventually, she knew. When they got back to London, when the report was filed, when everything returned to what it was. She would put it back in the evidence bag and that would be that and they would go back to being exactly what they had always been.
She turned her hand over in her lap, the stone catching the light.
Eventually, she thought.
The report took the better part of two days. It was detailed work, the kind that required precision and left little room for the mind to wander, which both Adam and Kate were grateful for.
She wrote it clearly and without embellishment and did not think about the Cotswolds or the kiss or the ring which she had put in the small dish on her bedside table.
Rickards found Dalgliesh in the small kitchen off the incident room, making tea in between meetings.
"Commander." Rickards helped himself to the second mug without asking, "Good work in the Cotswolds."
"Thank you, Simon."
"Clara wants the cover items back. She's meticulous about that sort of thing — Honestly she should have joined the force after leaving the service." Rickards stirred his tea slowly. "I told her I'd ask."
"Of course. I'll have my set sent over today."
"Your set, yes." Rickards did not look up from his tea. "She mentioned the rings specifically. Said DI Miskin hadn't returned hers."
Dalgliesh said nothing, which Rickards seemed to take as an answer in itself.
"I told Clara there was probably a simple explanation," Rickards continued, with the studied neutrality of a man who had decided, against his better judgment, to enjoy himself. "Evidence processing. Backlog. These things take time."
"It does take time," Dalgliesh agreed.
"Mm." Rickards finally looked at him. "Funny thing, though. When I asked you directly, you said there was no immediate urgency."
"There isn't."
"No," Rickards said. "I don't imagine there is." He picked up his mug. "I've known you a long time, Adam. Since before any of this and before..." He paused, thinking of his late wife and biy. "I'm not going to pretend I didn't notice anything. Or that Clara didn't have opinions about the ring you chose. She has a great many opinions, in fact about it all. I have had to sit through most of them."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Dalgliesh remarked dryly.
"No, you're not." Rickards almost smiled. "I'm only saying - for what it's worth, and I recognise it isn't my business - I think it's a good thing. Whatever it is. I'd rather not examine it too closely, you understand, for the sake of my own professional comfort. But I think it's a good thing."
Dalgliesh considered his tea. "Thank you, Simon."
The Commissioner turned gruff once more, "Don't thank me. Thank me by filing the paperwork properly when you do eventually account for the ring." Rickards headed for the door, then paused. "She's a fine officer, Miskin. One of the best." A beat. "I'd hate for anything to compromise that."
"It won't," Dalgliesh said, with more certainty than the conversation had technically earned.
"No," Rickards said, "I don't suppose it will." And he left Dalgliesh alone with his tea and the small, unfamiliar sensation of having been seen rather more clearly than he was used to being seen, by a man he had long assumed wasn't looking.
She went into the office on the second day. Dalgliesh was not in his office - Rickards had him in a meeting, then another meeting, the administrative machinery of a closed case grinding through its motions. She sat at her desk and finished her section of the report and tried not to notice that she kept looking at his office door.
Tarrant appeared at her elbow at half eleven with two mugs of tea, which meant he wanted something. He set one in front of her and sat on the edge of the adjacent desk
"Good work," he said. "Genuinely. Pamela Goss — I didn't see that coming."
"You might have if you'd come yourself," Kate said pleasantly.
"Someone had to hold things together here." He sipped his tea. "How was it? The week."
"You read the report."
"I read the case report." He looked at her over his mug. "How was the week, Kate."
She gave him a look that had ended many conversations. It did not end this one.
"I'm asking," Tarrant said carefully, "because I had a rather interesting conversation yesterday. With Rickards."
Kate looked at him.
"Apparently," Tarrant continued, examining his tea, "Lady Clara asked Dalgliesh to return some of the items used for the operation. The IDs, the cover documents." He paused. "She mentioned the rings specifically."
Kate said nothing.
"And apparently Dalgliesh told her that one of the rings had not yet been returned." Tarrant looked up. "He said DI Miskin still had hers. And that he saw no immediate urgency."
"No immediate urgency," Kate echoed.
"That's what Rickards said." Tarrant stood, picking up his mug. "Thought you'd want to know. For the purposes of, you know. Returning it. Promptly. As you would." He was already moving away. "Since there's apparently no rush."
She wanted to snap at Tarrant for gossiping like a housewife. Then she put the pen down, picked up her bag, and went home to get the ring.
Kate stood outside his door for slightly longer than was strictly necessary.
The excuse was good. The excuse was completely legitimate — she had the ring, it was an evidence item, it needed to be returned, she was returning it. This was an entirely professional visit. She had come after work hours because she had been in the office all day and this was on her way home, more or less, if you were flexible about the definition of on the way.
She knocked, firmly. Dalgliesh answered the door in his white shirt, collar open and sh, which meant she had caught him after the meetings. He looked at her for a moment with an expression she couldn't immediately name.
"Kate “
"I have the ring," she said. "I thought I should return it. Properly. Rather than leaving it in the evidence bag at the office, which seemed rather..." She stopped. "I have the ring," she said again.
He looked at her for a moment longer. Then he stepped back from the door."Come in,"
The flat was exactly as she had imagined it and not at all as she had imagined it. It was orderly and clean, with lovely high ceilings which she had imagined but so incredibly modern, colourful in its way with art on the walls. Books, a great many of them. The bay window she had pictured him standing at, the Thames beyond. A desk with papers on it, neat. A lamp already lit against the grey.
“Can I make you tea?” Dalgliesh offered. He had been making her tea for most of the week, after all.
"I've been thinking about something Tarrant said," she began, and he watched her nervously assemble her thoughts, far more nervous than she ever is. "When we were at the cottage. He rang and he implied that you — that it wasn't only me who... and then I was thinking about all of it..."
Dalgliesh watched her. Kate was trying not to panic. She had planned this, prepared this in her head and she has been considerably more coherent than this in her mind.
Dalgliesh had spent a great deal of his life being precise with language, choosing words the way other men chose tools, for fit and function. He had also spent time avoiding the one sentence that mattered, frankly because he was afraid. So humanly afraid.
"Kate," he said, quietly, because she deserved not to have to finish that sentence alone.
Kate looked up at him and sighed shakily. Oh, God, he was going to let her down gently. "I know that the week was — I know it was a cover. I know that most of it was the operation and it would be very foolish to —" She stopped again. Looked at the ring in her palm. "I'm not here about the ring," she said finally. "That's not why I came."
"I know," Dalgliesh said
"I told Clara there was no urgency," he said, "because I didn't want it back yet." He said it simply, in the way he stated facts, without looking away.
He took slow steps towards her, until he was in her space and his deep grey eyes met hers, "I have been trying to find a reason to say that for considerably longer than a week. The ring was a reason." He admitted, "I know how your hands look," he said. "I know how you take your coffee in the morning. I know that you loathe red wine. I know what your face does when you've seen something important and haven't decided what it means yet." He paused. "I know you, Kate. Rather thoroughly. And I should have said something about that long before now."
Kate blinked up at him. I know you Kate. That was - it was as close to those three words they were afraid to say.
"You might have," She agreed, and her voice came out steadier than she expected.
"I was being careful," he said. "Which was, on reflection, rather cowardly."
"It was a little," she said.
Dalgliesh's mouth curved up into a small smile. Something shifted in his face then — that rare, unguarded thing she saw in fragments. The version of him that existed when he had stopped arranging himself.
Kate crossed the room and put the ring on the desk, carefully. Then she looked at him, close now, and he looked back at her, and there was none of the cover between them this time — no elderly couples on the bridge, no kitchen window, no Susannah Cleave in the rain.
"Adam," she said.
"Kate," he said
He bent his head slightly and Kate closed the distance to kiss him. She kissed him back the way she had in the cottage kitchen, with the same logic, and this time there was no one watching and it didn't matter at all.
His arms wrapped around her waist as he kissed her, with the fervour and relief of someone who had wanted to do this. But this time, her hands came to cup his cheeks, touch him because she could without the pretense or fear. A proper kiss. A true kiss.
When they came up for air, Dalgliesh pressed his forehead against hers and Kate smiled, “I think I'll take that cup of tea.” she whispered.
Dalgliesh chuckled, “Yes, I can oblige.”