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Chapter Text

There's no real magic in this world, only love, the rest are just smokes and mirrors.

Endeavour Morse. (Ride.)

Heist Day Eve: Morning

‘You're right…’

Joan Thursday’s murmur of assent brings an immediate response to Morse’s lips, but this smugness doesn’t linger for long. Her next sentence takes care of it.

‘It's not your place to say,’ she snaps and, turning on her heels, she leaves him stranded in the middle of the hall of the Wessex Bank, looking like an idiot.

Or so she hopes.

How dare Morse scold her as if she were ten? She has enough of that at home. With Sam gone off to the Army, she has no need for a phony replacement perfecting an older brother routine. No, thank you very much.

Whom she dates is her own business: Paul Marlock is glibly fun, fast talking and displays the kind of charm she enjoys. And if she wants to be taken advantage of—ever so slightly—it’s her private business, not Morse’s, damn it!

Hoping that Morse is watching her, Joan breezes as disdainfully as she can across the hall. As she slips behind the counter, Gillian whispers, ‘Who’s the gorgeous one?’

‘Which one?’ asks Joan, swiftly looking around. ‘Where?’

No one could remotely match her colleague’s description. Morse is exiting the Bank, stiffened back and all—‘Good, score one for you,’ her brain happily chips in—a woman with a toddler in a pram is chatting with an older man, and two average-looking blokes are approaching the counter.

Seeing her blank look, Gillian giggles. ‘The one you were talking to, silly!’

‘Oh, him! No one, just a customer.’

‘How come you always get all the nice-looking ones?’ Gillian’s tone is on the side of wistful.

‘I don’t,’ mutters Joan, as one of the two ordinary men reaches the opposite side of the counter, his face already broadcasting the question he’s about to ask her.

Another day as usual at the Wessex Bank in 1967, Joan thinks gloomily.

The Kibbutz brochure advertises sun, sea, hard work, change of scenery and adventures aplenty.

Joan leafs through the pages half-heartedly, wondering what their previous allure was. Was their appeal once so entrancing that she has really considered exiling herself in a land about which she knew almost nothing? Uprooting was hard, Mary Bigot had confided to her. Yet, her friend had been willing enough to follow her fiancé to a new country where she would build her own home. She had almost enticed Joan to join them.

However, Joan has no one to follow in Israel; merely a pull coming from a mounting sense of inadequacy and her daily restlessness. Life in Oxford has become so stifling that sometimes she feels ready to scream at the most inappropriate moments. There’s no remedy for it. No one in town would understand what she really feels or what she craves. All the more, since she doesn’t know herself what the trouble is. She just wants something to happen. Anything.

Something that will spell change and a new momentum.

Something that would shake her out of the comfortable, stifling cocoon that encases and defines her.

Something that would ease her father’s yoke—a father more irascible than usual these days, gone short-tempered under the black spell of an interminable cold—and her mother’s warm care whose compliance now grates on her nerves.

In Oxford, Joan will forever be limited by her family, she knows. Being labelled ‘copper’s daughter,’ ‘Fred Thursday’s little girl.’ What he wanted her to be, the ideal offspring, drawn up by a forceful, protective father. Not a person in her own right, with her experiences to make, her path to choose or her own boyfriends to pick up. She has never relied on her own strength for anything. Fred Thursday takes care of it first.

No guy will try and put his hand up her skirt even with her tacit permission. No guy who happens to meet Fred Thursday first, anyway. To be honest, Jakes did try, but she just wasn’t that interested.

Even her present job is probably a by-product of her father’s reputation. What a better resume for a bank cashier than being Oxford City Police DI Thursday’s daughter? No way would she give any crook entrance to the vault!

The glossy paper gets blurry, and she starts when Gillian whispers urgently, ‘Look sharp, Joanie!’

Swiftly, Joan bends and hides the leaflet under the counter. From the corner of her eye, she sees Mr. Fordyce escort Mr. Mason out. Bouncing on his heels like a rooster, the manager surveys the two young women standing stiffly at their post. The slightly mechanical smile Joan flashes at him doesn’t convince him in the slightest of her innocence. Frowning, he goes back to his office.

‘I really must find myself another job or soon. They’ll find me frozen rigid in the same spot at five,’ Joan thinks. ‘They’ll have to wheel me out, feet first.’ She smothers a smile at the preposterous image.

Beside her, Gillian is making a show of turning the pages of the cash record register. Joan focuses on the sheaf of forms before her, when an elongated shadow sweeps over her hands.

Out of habit, she raises her face with a polite smile. It widens into a welcoming one that brings a knowing grin to Gillian, clearly reminiscing their outing last night at the Bingo Hall. Hastily reorganising her face into the blandest welcoming expression she can paste on, Joan goes through the motions of taking Paul Marlock’s check and fetching the cash he asked for.

She takes her sweet time, stretching this unexpected moment into the next minutes, letting his dimples lighten the space between them. Paul bends over to scribble his name, all the while chattering about the date Joan half-expected. She nods fractionally, her ponytail swinging happily.

At least, the day won’t be entirely wasted.

Heist Day: Morning

As she hurries across the Wessex Bank rear entrance, Joan skids to an abrupt halt, brushing against Ronnie Gidderton. She smiles apologetically at him, then more widely to Gillian. Morning greetings fly back and forth. Gillian is already at her desk, methodically compiling her workload of the day. But she seems to have been slightly late too, which mitigates her own tardiness. No wonder Ronnie Gidderton looked at her half-disapprovingly. Joan hastens to put her handbag away and to get busy with her early morning tasks.

It promises to be another of those days.

‘I must be psychic!’ she muses a quarter of an hour later, as she watches Morse cross the hall with long strides. ‘What’s he doing here? Keeping a tab on me? People will talk.’

No, they won’t.

Relieved, Joan keeps on filling her cashbox with bills while keeping an eye on him. Morse must still be smarting from their previous repartee, as he doesn’t spare a look in her direction as he passes by. Instead, he is quite focused on a woman at the other end of the hallway: a buxom blonde, whose dress is stretched as far as it can across curves owing as much to Nature’s gifts as to a push-up bra. The woman is conspicuously vulgar, but it doesn’t detract from her obvious attraction. The way Morse is engrossed in her, he’s clearly already under her spell.

Joan snorts, but the sound is drowned in sudden pandemonium.

The entrance door slams open. Through it, three masked and armed men burst into the morning tedium, yelling, ‘Alright! Nobody move!’ Their next sentence does state the obvious. ‘This is a robbery!’

Joan freezes, as one of them nimbly jumps on the counter before her, revolver in hand, amid the shrieks of the customers. From the corner of her eyes, she sees Mr. Gidderton slowly rise from behind the desk where he has been advising a now panic-stricken looking couple.

Sweat begins to gather on the nape of her neck while her legs feel like pillars of ice, yet her hand slowly inches towards the panic button hidden under the mahogany edge of the counter. As furtive as it is, it does not pass unnoticed.

‘Hands where I can see ’em! Step away from the counter!’ is the next command flung at her.

One of them is now standing on the mahogany, aiming his revolver at her, his vantage point allowing him to watch her every gesture, while another guy also aims in her direction.

Joan gasps and backs away, slowly raising her arms in surrender, her legs finding new life as she does so. Gillian’s loud, panting breathing confirms that she is close by.

One of the men comes closer, growling, ‘What are you doing?’ The same icy shine glints in his eyes and the deadly thing he holds. Mesmerised, she stares at it with widening eyes.

‘Stop!’ Morse’s urgent voice breaks her trance. ‘Stop!’

In the blink of an eye, the barrel of the gun swivels around to him. Morse slowly takes a step back, head still held high, as if his stance alone could fend off a dangerous animal. No such luck.

‘Don't look at me!’ A powerful blow from the weapon underscores his meaning on Morse’s cheekbone. He crashes to the floor. Women scream—Joan among them.

‘Get down on the floor!’ commands the robber, accenting the move with his weapon. Hurriedly, the hapless bystanders kneel or sit down. Morse is already slumped on the tiles, holding his face with both hands, which prevents Joan’s frantic eyes from seeing what damage was done.

The bloke who seems to be in charge adds with a dry chuckle, emphasizing his words with a curt gesture of his gun, ‘Do exactly as you're told, and no one will get hurt.’ He looks pointedly at Joan, sneering. ‘In five minutes, it'll all be over.’ Ripples of warmth and ice creep up her spine.

She soon learns what she has to do.

At a fast pace, Joan, Gillian, and a female customer throw bills pell-mell into a holdall, under the impatient promptings of the leader. ‘Put the money in the bag!’ was a command that left no space for hesitation, but their hands are shaking so much that they have to aim carefully at the aperture.

Still, it isn’t enough, as it soon becomes hideously obvious. Mr. Fordyce has to lead two of the robbers to the safe. They disappear through the corridor, the remaining gunman urging them, with increasing tension, to fill the bag faster. Joan’s fingers ache from the strain, and she throws the last bills in with unabashed relief.

They no sooner complete their task than a swift arc from the weapon signals them to join the rest of the hostages huddled in a row. Joan manages to kneel next to Morse, now sporting a crimson mark on his cheekbone; his alert eyes, the only thing alive in his face, probing something she knows not what. Settling down, she breathes deeply in and out, fighting her urge to find shelter behind her father’s bagman, and focusing instead on the shifts of colours on the tiles produced by obsessive cleaning. Maybe they just have to wait it out. Maybe they’ll be all right. She feels detached from her own body, as if every second overflows into minutes.

Coming from the street outside, the bang of a sudden shot, followed in quick succession by screams, is a shock. She edges closer to Morse. Swivelling on all fours, facing the door with quivering nostrils, he goes a shade paler, and his head tilts as if he were trying to hear what goes on outside. Then, reluctantly, he settles back. Their eyes briefly meet. Joan tries to swallow, but her throat is too tight. Behind them, Buxom Woman gasps out loud.

Right on cue, Mr. Fordyce enters the hall, sandwiched between his escorts, and looking as terrified as she feels. For the first time since their barging in, anxiety stiffens the frame of the robbers.

‘Talk to me, Tommy. What's going on?’ their leader barks, striding through the hall toward his last accomplice.

Joan stops straining to see impossibly past the frosted glass door—her unquenched curiosity paralleled by nearly all the onlookers—and looks at him.

Tommy answers furiously, ‘It's the kid. He's shot a copper!’

Unexpectedly, Joan lets out a hiccup and hastily swallows it. Uncertainly, Gillian’s hand searches for hers; the faint handclasp Joan returns is as clammy and icy. Incredulous, unspoken messages go between the clustered hostages, the cold of the floor spreading into their faces.

‘He's done what?’ As if once weren’t enough, the leader screams it again. He grabs his informant’s arm roughly, shaking him.

Without thinking, Joan lets go of Gillian and clutches at Morse’s arm, anchoring herself. He holds her gaze for a short while—her paralysed horror mirrored in his eyes—but otherwise seems oblivious of her. Taking a deep breath, Joan forces her fingers open and spreads them back on her thigs. A thin rivulet of sweat begins running beneath them, making her nylon tights itchy.

She’s distracted from the rising awareness of her physical discomfort by an amplified voice. So focused was she on her assumed composure, that she has missed the beginning of the sentence.

‘…Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright of the City Police. To whoever is inside the Wessex Bank, you are completely surrounded by armed officers.’

As Bright repeats his ultimatum, the gunmen slowly peel their masks off. The taller man hurls it to the ground, the stripping of his disguise displaying the beginning of a beard and a wide forehead over ferret-like eyes. The ugly thing with the rotund metal eyeholes nearly lands on Gillian’s knees. She lets out a tearful gasp and shrinks onto herself. Joan’s heart sinks. Inexperienced as she is in Police stuff, she knows what this uncovering means.

It isn’t lost to Morse either. Acutely conscious of his responses, Joan’s hand–which has resumed its previous place, clutching at his arm–feels his muscles and sinews stiffen. Under the subdued lightning, the fleeting half-smile splitting Morse’s face has the opposite effect of its intent as it morphs into a grimace. No reassurance, that, despite his well-meaning intent.

The outside voice surges up again. ‘My name is Bright. Let's not make things worse.’

Morse shifts, legs flexing, tension radiating from his body. He bends forward, intent on the door. The nearby lighted Art Déco pillar sheds grey shadows on the planes of his intent face. The red mark on his cheekbone blossoms like a flower of fire.

Bright’s voice subsides into silence. In the following lull, the ferret’s order shoots out like a bullet. ‘Put him down.’

Eagerly, the youngest strides forward, the panelled door groaning under his push. He is gone from their sight, when Morse cries out, ‘What? Wait!’

The leader swivels back, snarling. ‘Who asked you?’

‘Don't be so bloody stupid!’ Morse’s voice sounds desperately practical.

‘Stupid?’ The gun gets intimidatingly nearer, yet Morse opines, sounding more than desperate—defiant.

‘Do I look stupid?’ The barrel is now hovering a few inches from Morse’s head. Still, he doesn’t look at it, searches behind the enraged man’s glower, willing to brand his words on him. The man springs, grabbing Morse by his shirt, and forces him backward, bringing the gun over his heart. Joan’s stops briefly, then resumes its erratic beat.

Despite his danger, Morse forges ahead as reasonably, as if he was quoting some obscure piece of poetry. ‘If you gun down a senior police officer in cold blood, they'll hunt you to the ends of the earth.’ There is anxiety in his voice, now. His palms rise pleadingly. ‘That’s all.’

As quickly as he had sprung, the man releases Morse, who blinks once, then sags back. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut off, Joan slumps, her trembling hand wiping her face, trying to erase the dismal imaginings her brain has summoned. Next to her, Gillian smothers a whimper and hides her face against her.

Perhaps Morse’s crazy stunt has not been in vain. The leader’s torso disappears between the two doors, snapping curtly at his acolyte, ‘Tell him we want transport.’ Joan inhales sharply. ‘And safe passage guaranteed.’

It slowly dawns on her that one or all of the people squatting on the floor might just be their ticket out.

Yelling excitedly like a banshee and beating his chest like an ape, the young bloke goes back inside. His boss–Cole by name, they find out–makes him round up the hostages, and down they go, into the vault where they are locked in, except for Mr. Fordyce. As they are led away at gun point, the unfortunate manager goes with Cole towards the storage area.

The vault has never felt so stuffy before. The dim neon light and metallic hues give it a deadly, unexpected atmosphere. Everyone feels it, and they begin to whisper as if they were mourners at their own wake.

Apart from the safes lining the walls, there is little furniture in the room; only two tables in the middle of the room and a few chairs. The bleached-haired woman with brown eyes appropriates the one farthest from the gate, and begins to draw upon her cigarette in remote and disdainful silence. Others have no other choice than to sit on the hard floor.

Gillian perches awkwardly on the table. She wails faintly, ‘I want to go home,’ sounding near tears, and Joan draws upon unexpected fortitude to assure her, ‘We'll all go home.’ A hug follows. Gillian heaves a shuddering breath.

The little mousy man, whose voice Joan has not yet heard, adds helpfully, ‘The police will sort it out,’ but Gidderton, deaf to any hint, asserts angrily, ‘They haven't made much of a job of it so far.’

Instinctively, Joan’s gaze follows Morse. He’s pacing the length of the room. Hands in pockets, outwardly relaxed, he stops and stands near the gate, as if expecting something. Yet, for all his seeming ease, his hands are folded into fists, making his pockets swell.

A watch fit for a lone soldier, then, while factions foolishly bicker among themselves.

Turning his head away with obvious reluctance, he explains, ‘It's a raid that's gone wrong. The getaway driver's panicked. The men upstairs are stranded, frightened, and in it up to their necks.’

It isn’t enough for a sneering Gidderton. ‘They didn't seem frightened to me.’ His eyes study Morse with something like disgust.

‘Once they realise the fix they're in, they'll surrender. We all just need to keep calm,’ Morse clarifies, as if reason were the only answer. As befitting a good sentinel, he surveys all the people seated in various chairs or against the walls, and calmly resumes his pacing, Gidderton’s gaze following him with growing hostility.

Settling onto the table top, Joan turns her back on him, lulled into lethargy by a carousel of regrets. What if–what if she never gets out of this? Mum, Dad, Sam… They’ll be crushed. She’ll never find out–whatever she’s been seeking, if she… She’d never know–God, it hurts.

Joan’s arm tightens around Gillian’s neck. She winces, and Joan murmurs a hasty apology, letting her hand slide around her shoulder. She keeps it there. Holding Gillian comforts them both.

Morse’s steps resound in this…this…prison, with a steady ring mingling with her thoughts. Had he paced his cell like that after the Blenheim Vale debacle? She knows little about it, except what her mother explained, what she overheard from her parents’ talking when they thought neither Sam nor she could overhear. Weeks of it. How could Morse stand it? Ten minutes locked in a familiar room and she is already fit to be tied. It isn’t really the place that matters, it’s the knowing she can’t get out.

Behind her, low voices jerk her back to reality. ‘Can you read it?’ Joan glances over her shoulder, but from the sound alone, she understands that whatever her previous involvement was, Blondie currently doesn’t really care.

Morse’s lips curl up derisively. ‘Not without the key.’

Almost disdainfully, Blondie returns a notepad to him. ‘Good luck! It's all Greek to me.’

Unfazed by her lack of enthusiasm, Morse pulls a chair and sits down at the table, poring over it. He begins scribbling in it. His eyes sparkle with a delight which reminds Joan of a five-year old Sam unstopping a jar of candy.

Relief pours into her chest. Nothing’ll happen to them—to her. She’s sure of it, now. Well, almost. Watching Morse’s quiet focus is a ray of hope piercing the heart of her desolation.

She makes a decision and heaves a great sigh. Sliding into the chair right in front of him, she owns up, without daring to look Morse in the eyes, ‘It's a good job you're here.’

What an understatement! She falters and begins again. ‘I mean, I'm glad. If it's any comfort,’ hoping that he will read between her lines. Not that she’s such a complex book, just a second-shop one, really. One with chapters stuck together.

Morse flashes Joan a swift, uplifting smile. ‘Me too.’ His eyes linger on her rather than on his latest toy. The pages of the carbon pad he was copying from are mostly blank, with what looks like random numbers written down at regular intervals. He adds, more forcefully, ‘Don’t worry.’

As if it were so simple! She nods assent, nevertheless.

‘It'll be all right,’ he insists, a thin smile stretching his lips.

You’re here, so it might, she wants to say. Instead, she asks, ‘What's this?’

“A puzzle.”

Her eyes widen. Encouraged, he unfolds a yellowed leaflet. ‘Why would a man carry around a menu for a restaurant that long ago went out of business?’

She has no idea, and tells him so.

Prodding her, he reasons aloud. ‘More to the point, why would he circle just one item on the menu? Number 26. Chicken meat and sweetcorn soup.’ His hands still holding the pen and menu punctuate his words as he talks. Pale, freckled elongated fingers, slender yet strong.

Playing along, Joan says, ‘Do you know?’

He may not know, not yet, but he replies. ‘Well, of what are there 26?’

His musings snare another player. Gillian ventures, ‘Teeth?’

‘No, no. That's 32,’ Joan corrects.

‘Bones in the human foot.’ Gidderton’s input. But does he have to be so snappish?

Morse says quietly, ‘There are, but that's not it.’

So, he already knows the answer. Joan stifles a smile. What’s Morse playing at? A light bulb switches on in her brain, and then, it takes all her resolve not to get up and hug him. Brainy, indeed.

The little man offers, ‘26 cantons in Switzerland. Or is it 25?,’ so Joan decides to put an end to it, before answers can go more off base. ‘Letters in the alphabet,’ she ventures.

Morse’s approval sets fire to a happy glow deep in her stomach. Still, he’s unremitting in his endeavours. ‘Of which the last and 26th is—?’

‘—Z,’ Gillian says, her legs now swinging excitedly under the table.

Morse writes in the air as he speaks, his face smoothed into eagerness; trying to make them say it, like a teacher inciting answers from baffled or reluctant pupils. ‘So 26 equals—Z.’ His hands shapes the letter. ‘—equals C for chicken.’

Before their puzzlement, he presses on, focusing on Joan. ‘And so it goes on. One gives us…’ His voice trails, faintly interrogative.

‘—D,’ she hastens to answer.

‘That's right.’ Morse smiles at her with his eyes; then, without missing a beat, goes on, ‘And two is E and so on.’

Interested despite herself, Joan wonders aloud: ‘So, what does it say?’

He shrugs deprecatingly. ‘Well, so far, I've got “Royal Palace 50”, “Dark Venetian 80” and “Greek Scholar 200”.’

‘What?’ Joan leans forward, over the table. So does he, but the voluptuous blonde’s voice pierce their iridescent soap bubble. ‘Maybe I was wrong.’ Looking down on them and holding her cigarette like a Hollywood starlet, she looks thunderstruck.

Raising his eyebrows, Morse wryly offers, ‘You're welcome to grab a bunch of numbers and start turning them into letters.’

‘You're trying to keep us occupied,’ counters Ronnie Gidderton, sounding more and more aggravated and standing rigidly against the nearest wall as if he were propping it together by his will alone.

‘Which would you prefer? Terrified or distracted?’ Morse flings back.

‘I'd sooner be thinking of a way out.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Joan snaps to Gidderton, before it could escalate further. ‘You want to tunnel a way out? Might take a while. Till then...’

She gets up, goes around the table and looks at the letters that Morse is busy scribbling. ‘I’m in. Who else wants to try?’ she offers.

Silently, the couple of customers, who have kept their presence as unobtrusive as possible, rise. The man takes a fountain pen from his coat and uncaps it.

With the good players engrossed in their calculations, the only remaining awkward customer is Gidderton. He keeps pacing to and fro, like a rat in a cage, in the same black mood. Joan no longer pays him any attention.

Standing close to Morse and shielding him from inquisitive eyes, she secrets his warrant card into a pocket of her dress. He’s right. She’d better look after it. The tautness around his mouth lessens somewhat when she is done.

Before he goes back to his deciphering, she plunges ahead. ‘What did you mean? About Paul?’ Suddenly, it seems terribly important, not only to understand, but to be sure of Morse’s…regard.

There’s no inflection in his answer, just a swift glance up, as if to gauge her reaction. ‘Just that I've come across him in my travels. That's all.’ A heartbeat. His. Not hers, still processing his words. ‘You deserve better.’ A tiny shake of his head underlines the adjective.

His pen scratches the paper as he writes down another word. She can no longer look at him.

‘He asked me about work,’ Joan confesses at last.

The faint scratching stops. She almost doesn’t dare to look at his face, but when she finally does, it’s expressionless.

‘About the bank,’ she finally breathes with a tremendous effort. Her throat aches as if her words are being handpicked with hot irons. ‘When we had deliveries for the weekend float.’

‘I thought it was just conversation,’ she adds brokenly, ‘but it wasn't, was it?’

His silence is answer enough. Then, ‘Did you let on about—?’ A sharp nod of his head.

She understands. ‘Dad? No fear.’

He says drily, ‘Well, that's something, at least.’ His hand clenches around the pen.

He has no time to turn back to his calculations. Ronnie Gidderton stands before them, a weird lilt to his voice as he surmises, ‘You two know each other, do you?’

Morse raises an eyebrow. ‘We've a mutual acquaintance.’

His dilatory answer doesn’t please Gidderton one bit. ‘Who's that, then?’

‘No-one you'd know.’

‘It's like that, is it, then?’ Again, this strange note.

‘It's like that,’ Joan says, fingering the creased menu.

Then Gidderton lets it drop, as Gillian exclaims aloud about her finds. The words make no sense. Underneath her surprise, sounds of hurried footsteps echo in the corridor. The hostages freeze in alarm as one of the robbers, Tommy, the sullen one, unlocks the gate. Blocking the entrance, he summons Gidderton and Morse. He grabs Gidderton by the collar, ushering him outside. Meekly, Morse follows suit, deliberately embracing the blonde. Unobtrusively, he slips the notepad to her, under the jeers of his captor.

Behind them, the steel door snaps shut like a burial crypt.

With Morse gone, all the warmth has fled the room. Shivering, Joan wraps her arms around herself. Morse’s warrant card suddenly weighs a tonne in her pocket. The women—even Blondie—huddle together.

It seems forever before the clang of the lock heralds them back.

Whistling, the youngest henchman advances towards Joan. Her world shrinks to his deliberate, leisurely progress. For each step he takes, another sweat drop slithers down her spine.

He stops before her, at arm’s length, and with a gleeful nod, signals her to come forward.

Joan takes a small, faltering step, then another. Hearing the others follow her doesn’t lessen her fear.

Seeing the light of day doesn’t bring Joan any relief. Watching Morse entering the hall of the bank—along with Gidderton—does. They are both in their shirt sleeves, their faces shiny with sweat. Much to Joan’s regret, they take place at the opposite side of the line.

‘Come on!’

It takes a few seconds before she gets it. Cole has to repeat it before Joan leaves the security of the row and steps forward.

He flings out his arm and the barrel of his gun goes to rest on the side of her head. At the contact, she flinches and goes so unnaturally still that she doesn’t dare blink. Her staring eyes begin to fill.

‘What's your name?’

‘Joan.’

Far, far away, Morse’s eyes are filled with anguish.

‘Joan what?’

Morse.

‘Strange.’ Her voice finds strength as she repeats, ‘Joan Strange.’

‘Is that right? Joan Strange?’

The ringing in her ears makes hearing difficult. She blinks away the gathering moisture. Her eyes flick to Morse then right in front of her.

‘Yes,’ she says. Her back itches.

The pressure against her temple subsides as Cole chooses a new target: Morse. ‘And who's this?’

Morse’s stricken face.

‘I don't know,’ Joan lies, hoping the tremor in her voice is of her own imagining.

Morse’s blanched lips, parting as if preparing for a riposte. Naked fear in his eyes.

She manages a tight smile. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’ A little laugh. Good touch, that. Yeah, that’s good.

From the corner of her eyes, she glances swiftly at Cole. His mouth is set in a tight, hard line. Then, with a sick, mock friendliness, he says, ‘You see, this one says that one is a copper.’

This one… Gidderton. Dirty little shit! Triumph brightens his eyes. Hers flash loathing at him, and he lowers them for a second. But Cole’s voice is relentless. ‘He says you know him.’

Morse’s coat’s hanging from his right hand. Rolled up sleeves on his arms. Strange how she’s rarely seen him in such dishabille. Always so formal.

‘I don't. He's just a customer.’ Anguish running over.

‘He's just a customer?’ Disbelief.

No. He’s Dad’s bagman. He’s— She can’t voice it, even in her mind.

‘He isn't!’ In a flash, Gidderton hurls himself away from the others, hands extended as in prayer. ‘Joan, tell him!’

Not minding him, Cole keeps moving purposely, his gun pointed at Morse’s head. The latter is petrified with horrified dismay, his heavy breathing the only sign he is human and not carved from marble, as the distance between flesh and steel lessens.

‘He's just a customer?’ Cole cocks his gun; the click explodes loudly in the silence.

Try as she can, Joan’s eyes don’t shut.

‘So if I was to…’ Cole’s finger pulls the trigger as he whirls around.

The voice that screams in agony isn’t Morse’s. The body that topples on the floor isn’t Morse’s. Joan welcomes that knowledge, in a sick, horrified wave of liberation. Hit in the lower abdomen, Gidderton lays on his side, the whiteness of his shirt now marred by a widening streak of crimson.

As swiftly, Cole pounces on Joan and seizes her by the throat, whirling her around in an obscene parody of waltzing. He forces her to gaze on Morse.

Time slows to a halt. There are only three people in the world: Morse, herself and Cole. Coursing through her mind is an overwhelming refrain, we’re going to die, we’re going to die, but the pressure wounding her windpipe forces her to focus on Cole’s words.

‘Look at me! If I was to do that to him, that'd be alright with you?’

No words come to her, just memories.

Morse’s shyness, not daring to go in. Snippets of conversations, her trying to draw him out. His lopsided smiles, brief bark of a laugh or fidgeting, when she gets past his defences. Her sudden disappointment when he didn’t take advantage of her. The crinkling at the corner of his eyes, the night she invited him to dance. The momentary twinkle in his eyes. His sleeping face propped awkwardly on the back of their couch, the usual lines of his forehead smoothed by sleep. The way he discreetly looked at her legs.

Morse shouting, ‘Just leave her. He's telling the truth. I'm a police officer. Let her go.’

That is no memory.

Cole releases Joan and hurls her away, as if she were some kind of trash. She stumbles back, her widened eyes not leaving Morse.

Cole has known all along. A tell-tale form lying abandoned on a desk gave away Morse’s identity. Gidderton turned traitor and got shot for nothing.

But Mr. Fordyce has no wish to be the next casualty. He tells Cole Joan’s surname. Cole bursts out laughing, with joyless mirth.

Kneeling down by Gidderton’s side, Morse seems at a loss, not daring to touch the wound. No one offers to help him. Even Joan doesn’t contemplate it. She stands as though shackled to the spot, an island of whirling thoughts.

Now armed with full knowledge, Cole smoothly moves across the floor towards Morse. ‘Remind me. An inspector outranks a constable, doesn't he? So what do I need you for?’ His demonstration is faultless and he knows it.

He raises his gun, but pauses as Morse utters, ‘Kill me, you'll never know who set you up.’ On Morse’s upper lip, sweat glistens dully under the neon light.

This comes, obviously, as a surprise. Morse pushes his advantage, filling all the squares. ‘You think it's an accident that I'm here? That we had the place surrounded in five minutes?’ Defiant scorn drips from his tone as he drives his point home. ‘Somebody sold you out.’

Frowning, the youngster interferes, ‘Maybe we should hear him out.’ Instead of listening, Cole puts the gun in his hand, and instructs, ‘Put him down.’

The scream tearing out of Joan’s throat suffocates her. She springs out of her stasis and runs towards Morse.

She has to reach him before...before…

She never knows what for. Her impetus is broken by a hard arm closing upon her ribs. She struggles against that unyielding girdle with all her might, but loses the fight and is dragged away from Morse before she can even get close. Her last sight of him is stamped under her eyelids: arm reaching out to her, helpless agony in his eyes.

Morse shakes his head in denial, and seeing this artless gesture, she just dies inside.

This is it. Nausea rising, Joan squeezes her eyes shut with all her might, the now too familiar coldness weighting on her temple.

Then a phone starts ringing.

Chapter Text

Heist Day: Morning (continued)

Mr. Fordyce’s clipped tone as he answers the phone is bloody anticlimactic, even surrealistic in its familiar tenor. Someone wants to speak to ‘the man in charge,’ he announces.

The weight of the gun on Joan’s temple goes away. She’s released from Tommy’s hold and takes a stumbling step away, feeling Morse’s distraught stare on her—her only prop to stay upright. They’re both panting as if they’d run a marathon. Perhaps they have.

They are both alive—Not well, precisely, but alive. That’s something, at least. Breathing deeply, Joan eyes Morse’s face greedily, learning all the curves and planes she never noticed properly before.

The silence in the bank is deafening. Cole’s voice is the only sound reaching Joan’s ears. Everyone is hanging on the one-side conversation. He’s pretty darn chummy with the copper on the other end of the line, in a twisted way; that much is clear.

Fred Thursday’s speaking. It soon becomes obvious with the hints Cole carelessly drops. Joan focuses harder, but she can’t really hear what her father is saying. From afar, she just recognises the familiar lilt and rhythm. Still, it’s comforting—much more than she could have imagined. She was twelve years old the last time her Dad’s voice was that comforting.

Noises add up, bit by bit. Nervous tapping of fingers. Her own heartbeat. Then, a whimper enters her conscience, and Joan tentatively crosses the floor to its source. Engrossed in their anticipated triumph, Cole and his minions don’t pay any attention, so she goes without too much trepidation.

Gidderton has barely moved since he was shot. The only difference now is the size of the bloodstain on the once-immaculate fabric and the rivulet by his side. Joan kneels down, opposite Morse. Again, they exchange brief glances. This is becoming a habit with them, this speaking without talking.

Deep furrows on his forehead betray Morse’s helplessness and reluctant pity. Joan fells chilled to the bones, but no more than Gidderton. He’s wracked with tremors, legs drawn up, hands pressed to the bullet hole from which his life is flowing. His head is lolling on the floor. Joan doesn’t know what to do, so she slips a finger under his tie and loosens it. Gillian joins them, but she is no use, weeping not so silently.

‘I'm sorry, Joan,’ Gidderton moans. His face is distorted into a mask she doesn’t recognise. Gone is the posh young, ambitious banker, so proud of his position.

Joan doesn’t even know what she murmurs, hoping beyond hope that he will believe her, even if she doesn’t believe it herself. Sentences like help is on its way, and you’re gonna be alright.

Gidderton rasps, ‘I just wanted to get everyone out of here.’ —Except Morse, she can’t help thinking— and ‘Be a hero’—but the actual hero is over here, grief-filled eyes staring into space, not at the one who sold him out.

Gidderton stops talking, stops doing—anything. Gillian weeps. And so does Joan.

A bus horn outside signals the exodus from the bank. Everybody gets out in a hurry, except the two bargaining cards Cole wants to keep up his sleeve.

Cole and the young bloke force Joan and Morse forward, down, down till they reach the basement storage area. On the far wall gapes a new hole.

They carelessly trample on years of archives then they step over the ragged exit leading to the adjoining hotel. When her turn comes, Joan falters as the hem of her dress catches in the lower rim—she feels it tearing—and she staggers through, utterly spent. Morse catches her when she reaches the other side, preventing her fall. She puts an arm round his neck, glad of the feel of his body against hers, but he lets her go sooner than she would have liked.

His plea to let them go goes unnoticed. Morse is right. She doesn’t know how long she can keep this up. And then, what?

The rest of their progress passes in a series of flashes. Afterwards, Joan can’t really fit them together; all the pieces are there, but some of them are all wrong.

Running along dimly lit corridors, Cole and the other guy preceding them. The air is sour, cleaning is long overdue, and the lightbulbs give out a flickering, yellow light. She feels Morse’s eyes on her, his hands steadying her when her legs go all rubbery.

Morse whips a pad out of his jacket—he’s no longer in his shirt-sleeves, she suddenly notices—and gives it to her. ‘If anything happens, give this to your father,’ he insists. He’s talking gibberish. Nothing will happen to him, nothing must happen to him. He tells her about horses’ names and motives and arrests to make, and Cole shoves him forward—all the while muttering something about the old lung-er and the damage he still can do in the three weeks he has left—and she hides the pad in the same pocket Morse’s warrant card is and runs along.

A locked door getting blasted. The firing petrifies her—she can’t stand it anymore. It spells blood and death and destruction and terror. She reaches blindly to Morse and he engulfs her in his arms. He smells of spices and sweat and safety, and her hands dig into his waist. ‘Don’t let go,’ she asks. ‘Please, don’t.’ He whispers something into her hair, but she’s too shaken to remember it properly.

What she remembers are the hard gentleness of his hands on her back, then the sudden freedom of surging into open air. Cole’s hand propelling her forward, wrenching her from Morse. He swivels back, his eyes flashing alarm, and she wonders what he can do about it when a shout coming from behind echoes in the courtyard, ‘Armed police!’ Dad’s voice. Shooting bangs.

She remembers dashing faster as Cole lets go of her and shoots back in answer. A gun replying—reassurance of a sort. Dad’s alright. Running into cover behind a car, agonizing, Where’s Morse?

More shooting. Screams splitting her ears. Cole hoisting her to her feet, dragging her, yelling, ‘Throw the gun out! Or she gets it.’

The rest is a blur of diffracted pieces. Dad lowering his weapon on the ground, slowly, slowly. Cole’s barrel driven hard into the flesh of her throat. And, coating the seconds, fear. Naked, unadulterated, absolute terror. Then Morse’s voice, hoarse with tension, ‘The chamber's empty. Only he's too stupid to count to six.’ Gunfire, then she twists free of Cole’s clutches. She springs to safety, backs away blindly and bumps into cold metal, a garbage can.

She doesn’t want to remember the unconceivable.

Her father, her own father, coldly aiming at Cole, his finger tightening on the trigger. Cole Matthews’ taunts. Morse’s appeal, ‘Don't let her see you do this.’

She doesn’t want to remember. She doesn’t.

Fred Thursday lowers his gun.

All of a sudden, Joan feels sick. She turns around wildly and bends over, her stomach emptying itself of her breakfast. She slowly straightens up, holding on for dear life on the garbage can. Her handkerchief is still in her handbag, left behind in the bank, so she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her stomach heaves again, and she bends double, retching, but the second time, the bile doesn’t travel farthest than her throat.

A familiar hand offers her a hanky and she seizes it, gratefully. A glass of water—or, better still, a cuppa—would be better, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Her father asks, ‘Alright, Joanie?’ and she nods. What else can she say? She gives the hanky back to him, and he crushes her into his arms. She lets herself be embraced, limp as a rag doll. He kisses her brow and Joan lets him, her insides churning at his contact.

While she was puking a few inches away from the still-prone Cole, coppers did their thing and took him and his mate away. However Morse is still here, on the far end of the court, talking in undertones with Mr. Bright and Jim Strange. At one point, they both look at her and resume talking.

Joan finds that despite her upset stomach, her legs work fine. She inhales sharply and cautiously crosses the courtyard, her father in tow. Catching Jim Strange’s eyes, she sees him about to come towards her, and then he subsides. His back to her, Morse hasn’t spotted her yet.

When she reaches them, though, Jim’s outward glance has probably notified him of her approach, so she finds herself facing him. Without the strain of their common plight, unexpectedly, she’s at a loss, so she merely manages, ‘I’ve got something of yours.’

‘Indeed you have, Miss Thursday,’ he replies, and extends his hand.

She fishes, first his warrant card, then the notepad, out of her pocket and hands them to him. He nods briefly, and is about to put them away when Joan takes one step forward. On impulse, she lifts a hand and caresses his cheek, the one with the purple bruise. ‘You should get something on that.’

Morse’s eyes search Joan’s for a heartbeat and she feels her cheeks flushing hot. She realises that they have three very interested witnesses—Jim Strange opening his eyes wide and Mr. Bright looking on with a benevolent air, she can’t quite see her Dad’s expression— and hastily takes her hand back.

‘Thanks for taking good care of us,’ she adds lamely.

‘Just doing my job, Miss Thursday,’ Morse replies. His voice is flat, as if he were a bad actor struggling to remember his lines.

‘Thanks, anyway.’

Morse nods briskly, but a small flash of a smile lightens his face. He fingers the blank carbon pad, opens it, and his smile turns wry. By the look of him, something has clicked. The last piece of his puzzle, maybe?

Mr. Bright interferes. ‘Thursday, your wife would be glad to…’

Dad nods, takes her arm and escorts Joan towards her teary-eyed Mum, her frantic hugs, and home.

Heist Day: Afternoon

Home isn’t quite the same. It holds new ghosts—ghosts born of her failures, of her shallowness, of her teenaged, irresponsible, revolt. Shadows of her failures.

All that happened is Joan’s fault. She’s a murderess.

Oh, not by deeds or by intent, but by…she doesn’t know how to quantify it. Flirting, carelessness, frivolity, plain stupidity? She may wash her hands many times, and she’ll still find blood clinging to her nails. All the perfumes of Arabia, and all that rot.

Unaware of the extent of her turmoil, her mother fusses awkwardly, asking if she wants—needs something—anything. From far away, Joan understands her relentless activity. It’s just a way to go back to normal, to reassure herself that her daughter is here, safe and sound. But it gets too much; it interferes with the carousel in her head. When she has half-finished her tea, Joan gets up, saying that she needs a bath.

Washing the suds from her body and watching them go down the drain is like getting rid of her sensations. She feels numb and it feels good. Joan towels herself dry, rubbing her back until her skin tingles. She untangles her hair carefully, one strand at a time, and puts back on the dress she selected this morning. If she didn’t, she’d have to burn it or throw it out, and she truly liked it—likes it.

It’s like falling from a bicycle, she tells herself. One has to keep a stiff upper lip and ride again. But even to her ears, her inner voice lacks conviction.

She knows she has to wear the dress again; she knows she’ll have to go and pick up the handbag she left in the drawer of her desk at the Bank. It’s only that her skin crawls at the idea of setting foot in the building again, of crossing the floor at the very place Ronnie d—

Joan shakes her head in denial, and a wave of dizziness suddenly hits her. She catches the edge of the washbasin and waits for the world to stop spinning.

When it does, she goes downstairs and joins her mother in the kitchen. Win is busy washing up the dishes. Without uttering a word, Joan grabs a tea towel and begins to dry them. Her gestures are automatic, wiping one side of the plate carefully, then the other one. She seizes a glass, but be it unrinsed soap or merely her unsteady hands, the glass sort of slips out of her grasp and smashes on the floor. She sees it tilt downward as in slow motion, but the sound of shattering glass explodes and overpowers all her senses. She gasps out loud and whirls round, her arms flailing.

‘There, there!’ Win says. ‘There’s no harm done!’ She busies herself with the broom and dustpan while Joan watches, rooted to the spot.

‘Joan! You’re as white as a sheet, poor lamb! Come sit down.’

Her mother takes her arm and leads her to the sofa. Here they stay, words failing them both, till the sun goes unhurriedly down the horizon, and Win has to switch on the lights.

Fred Thursday finds them here; subdued lighting slanting across Joan’s fixed stare and Win’s worried one.

Joan raises her head. ‘So?’

All the hostages are safe, the Matthews gang are in the nick, but she guessed that already. Gillian waved at her from afar when Joan reached the blocked street in front of the Wessex Bank. Joan won’t even have to give a statement, Dad says. The others talked in detail about all that transpired, and even to Miss Frazil. Now that they've escaped safely, they have gladly snatched their two minutes of fame.

Dad also tells them about the Lorrimers, the carbon pad, and Morse’s sleuthing. Paul Marlock’s name is left out of his report. He’s sparing her, she realises. She knows that underneath all his words, he is scrutinizing her, fishing for a reaction, any reaction. He gets one.

At his mention of Morse’s name, Joan’s face gets livelier, and she says, ‘Did you know Morse saved Mr. Bright’s life?’ she explains. That’s the only thing she discloses about the heist.

‘Good lad,’ her father comments.

The weight of his gaze on her is too heavy. Avoiding it, she turns her head and stares instead at the clock on the mantel. All of a sudden, her mother’s knick-knack appears extraneous. Mementos of past holidays, moments frozen in china, cards, photograph, flower vase. She, for one, doesn’t need such trinkets. Her recent memories are etched in throbbing, vivid colours, not in fading black and white or soft, pastel china.

But there’s no avoiding it, not with her parents watching her in this fashion. ‘I just keep seeing Ronnie,’ she confesses at last. ‘It’s my fault.’

Her father’s eyes are full of understanding. ‘No. You fell foul, that's all,’ he says gruffly.

She nods, an empty gesture, one that might set their minds at rest.

He adds, ‘A good night's sleep, you'll feel better in the morning,’ searching for Mum’s backing.

‘Nature's remedy,’ Wins approves.

A good night’s sleep might be it. Joan hugs her mother good-night. She gets up. Dad takes hold of her hand when she goes past him, then embraces her. She stiffens in his embrace.

Climbing the stairs to her room feels like going to the scaffold.

The Day After: Morning

The early morning air is damp and cold. Joan shivers as she closes the door behind her and tiptoes through the garden path into the street. Her coat isn’t quite warm enough, but time is precious, so she put on the pale green one hanging in her wardrobe-closet.

The street is empty. Her heels make an eerie clip-clop as they hit the pavement.

So immersed is she in her misery that she doesn’t spot the Jag before it pulls over a little ahead of her.

Morse gets out of it, of all people. It was half past five when she crossed the threshold of her parents’ house. What’s he’s doing here? It’s much too early for his usual pick-up appointment.

Stepping behind her, with that infuriating formality of his, he asks where she is going, and that simple, obvious inquiry utterly clobbers her.

She didn’t count on a witness to her running, and Morse is the very last person she wants to talk to. Yet she pauses, feeling her mouth spasm nervously.

The accusation in his eyes is unbearable. His next question is worse, ‘Like this?’

She doesn’t know what to say, but she tries. ‘I have to,’ she curtly states.

Morse clearly doesn’t understand. There is pain around his eyes and an involuntary twitching in his mouth when he probes, ‘Where will you go?’

He has found the weak spot of her plan and it stings, yet she can’t help replying, ‘I don’t know.’ In all her ruminations, she hasn’t really thought about that part. She just wants out. Out of her skin. Out of her life.

‘Stay.’ One word—one that shreds her heart.

‘I can't.’ No, she can’t. Not when shame and guilt and self-disgust threaten to tear her apart.

He insists, sounding more desperate. ‘Just give it time. Everything that happened—just give it a chance.’

She looks at him, trying to make him understand without words, not that she has much hope of succeeding. Instead, she tumbles into his naked pain, as the man who would not beg for his own life pleads, ‘You mean the world to them.’

She can’t look into his eyes anymore. I left them a note, she reassures herself. It’ll have to do.

Morse’s voice breaks. ‘You mean the world to—’

He hasn’t moved, but the raw need surging in his face is staggering. She can’t ignore it any longer. She heaves a great sigh and puts her suitcase carefully on the pavement, holding only on her resolve.

‘Look after them,’ she merely replies. She won’t say please, she knows he’ll be kind to them. ‘Dad won't understand—’

Morse’s exasperated hiss cuts her sentence off. There is something new in his eyes, too, anger mingled with disappointment.

It’s no use. Joan shrugs and picks up her suitcase. She must hurry if she wants to catch her train before her mother raises the alarm. She knows now how persistent Fred Thursday is when he is on a trail.

No, Dad won’t understand, but it’s my life, not his.

Surely, by now, Morse knows that his efforts are wasted. Joan turns around, takes one step towards the station, then another one, and suddenly, she experiences the same disorientation that struck her when she heard the glass shattering in the kitchen.

This time, she finds herself again in the corridor of the hotel, just before Cole fired at the door. Now, Cole’s words resound loud and clear: ‘—doc's given him three weeks. Won’t stop ‘till he’s got us.’ Again, she clutches at Morse’s jacket, burying her face in his shoulder. Again, she feels Morse’s arms closing around her. The illusion is so perfect that she even inhales a whiff of his aftershave. Rough wool rasps against her cheek.

When she comes to, she’s sprawled on the basement, cradled in Morse’s arms. When she stirs, his embrace loosens, and he gazes intently at her, his concern obvious.

‘Miss Thursday, are you all right?’

Still lightheaded, she closes her eyes, and her head finds the haven of his shoulder. She’s still reeling with the memory of Cole’s words. Reality can wait awhile.

‘You heard it, too,’ she states, her voice uneven.

‘What?’

‘What Matthews said about “ol’ lung-er”.’

Morse stays silent, but his hold tightens for a second.

‘Oh, God,’ Joan moans. ‘I—I can’t…’

Duty and desire tear her apart: the need to stay, the urge to go. She doesn’t know anymore which fear has the upper hand.

Suddenly, her eyes overflow with tears. She fights them back, but there are too many of them and she feels so, so tired. She doesn’t even know how she’ll get upright on her own. Stubbornly, she wriggles out of his embrace, and slowly tries to stand. Always the perfect gentleman, Morse helps her to her feet.

‘Please, Miss Thursday. Whatever you do, you can’t go off like this.’ He takes a good look at her face. ‘Did you get some sleep?’

‘Why?’ The dark rings under her eyes answer for her.

‘At least, have a good night sleep—or a good kip. Things will get in perspective. Believe me, I know.’

Exhaustion suddenly tumbles upon her and she nods. It makes sense.

Morse knows of someplace safe where she can rest, he says, so she reluctantly agrees. She sleepwalks to the Jag and slips into the passenger seat, not caring where they are going as long as it isn’t at her parents’.

When they reach the basement flat, she realises where she is. But at that point, she is too dog-tired to object. She even promises she won’t leave till Morse gets back. Tit for tat, he swears that he won’t blab about her to her father. Not one hint.

Once he’s gone off to chauffeur Fred Thursday, Joan takes off her shoes, folds her coat on the nearby chair, then lies down on Morse’s bed. She drops almost instantly asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

Fortunately, she doesn’t dream.

Chapter Text

The Day After: Afternoon

Slanting light coming from the windows rouses Joan. She forgot to draw the heavy curtains. It is late afternoon already, and she feels somewhat refreshed, even if she still feels off kilter.

She’s peckish, too. Tentatively, then more thoroughly, she searches through cupboards and drawers in Morse’s cubbyhole of a kitchen and unearths a loaf of bread going stale, jam and coffee. Coffee and toasts it shall be, then.

There are also bottles. Lots of them. Beer, scotch, red wine, white wine, you name it. Much more spirit than solid food, anyway. No wonder Morse is so thin.

While the water boils, she takes a look around.

This impersonal one-bedroom flat isn’t much. It wouldn’t look really lived in but for the clutter lying around. Books jammed haphazardly on the shelves. A discarded and wrinkled shirt on the back of an armchair. Dirty glasses. However, records are stacked cleanly near a portable radio set on a shelf.

Beneath the window, there is a battered record player, a LP on the turntable. Joan gets closer and read the label. Piano Concerto No.20 in D Minor K.466, it says. It means nothing to her, but Mozart’s name does. On the coffee table, the slipcase sports the picture of a dark-haired man, the pianist, she supposes. Daniel Barenboim is his name. She sets it back on the table top.

There isn’t a photograph on the mantelpiece or hanging on the walls. Not one personal memento.

She didn’t imagine his flat like this. Sure, Joan knows a Detective Constable can’t afford a palace, but she expected something more…sophisticated. Despite the cream, brown, and beige palette, the state of the place spells negligence. It’s not home, it’s just a place to sleep.

The whistle of the kettle interrupts her musings. She takes her coffee with her and sits in the armchair, placing her too hot cup on the nearest table. The floor feels cold to her stocking-clad feet and she remains motionless for a while, her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped around them and her head on her knees.

She is alone with her thoughts. Isn’t it what she wanted? Now is the time she has to learn. To be adult, to choose her path. To think her own thoughts without interference.

Minutes go by. Joan remembers her coffee when it’s already gone tepid. She exhales, resigned. What a metaphor for her life so far! Has she always been a step too late? Too immersed in the present to see ahead? Seeking excitement instead of purpose? Struggling against what her family and her friends wanted her to be?

No, no, she hasn’t. It must be her hunger speaking. With an additional spring in her step, she goes to the burner and heats up more water. She’ll pour it into her cup.

When she has eaten a few marmalade toasts and drunk her coffee, she regains some composure. But, unaccountably, she still can’t focus on her future. One of the reasons she left home was to think properly, and she finds out she can’t. Excellent as her resolve was, it’s impossible to keep to it. Her sudden awareness—she doesn’t want to linger on Cole’s words, she doesn’t!—has overthrown all her carefully constructed plans—not that they were fool proof, she thinks ruefully. One word from Morse, and her pretty castle in the air came crashing down on the pavement, along with herself—in Morse’s arms.

Every turn in Joan’s mind reminds her of Dad and of Morse. Questions without answers whirl in her head. Is it true? Must she go back? What will she say to her parents? Surely, by now, they have read her farewell note. Is her father deathly ill? Will he—? Her head suddenly throbs, and the pain exploding behind her eyes buries the last interrogation.

Regarding Morse, she acknowledges that her…renewed interest comes from her presence in his flat, drinking his coffee and emptying his larder.

Browsing his books, as well. Driven by curiosity, she peruses the contents of his library shelves. On the mantelpiece, a few paperbacks and hardbacks are piled up: Arthur C. Clarke’s Earthlight, Edgar Ansel’s Germany Puts the Clock Back, biographies of composers, Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson, The Poems of John Donne.

She selects the latter. The book opens itself at a well-thumbed page. There are annotations and markings in the margins. One passage has been underlined and Joan reads:

“When love, with another so
Interinanimates two soules,
That abler soule, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controules.”

She flushes red. Suddenly, continuing reading seems a huge breach of privacy.

As she puts the book back on the mantelpiece, pieces of paper slip out and plummet to the floor. She crouches to pick them up, and a series of numbers jump from the page: “Robey, £15”, “Gwen, £25”, again and again, and also “Joyce, £10”. There is also the stub of an old betting receipt marked “Morse”. Puzzled, Joan slips the notebook leaves randomly into Donne’s poetry: she’d never have taken him for the betting, gambling type. His passion for crosswords didn’t seem to gel with hazard games. Shows how one can be mistaken!

Despite her best efforts, Joan is no closer to a solution than she was last night. What is she going to do? Maybe she does need a respite.

Fearing a news flash on the heist, she disdains the radio and lowers the needle on the record left on the turntable.

Time for her mind to wander. Mozart should be the thing: sweet and rounded, with nice, little-powdered-Marquis prettiness. Not the kind of music she associates with Morse, actually, but, how would she know? Maybe she doesn’t know him at all. She never suspected gambling was one of his failings. He seemed too much of a thinker for that.

Joan leans back in the armchair and tucks her legs beneath her. The concerto unfolds, queries from the piano succeeded by ominous replies from the orchestra.

She never imagined that a piece of music could wrap itself around her in such a way, clinging to her pain however lessening it. The tension shots up into syncopated bursts, eased by the flurry of the keyboard alternating between strength and uncertainty. Still, it fights tooth and nail to free itself from the underlying menace in relentless energy.

Her head leans back on the back of her seat, and her muscles slowly loosen. Joan loses herself in the music, becoming both the piano and the forces that engulf and nurture it.

In the short hiatus between the first and the second parts—‘movements,’ the record slipcase calls them—her eyelids open.

Standing a few feet away in the entrance, half hidden by the door frame, Morse is looking at her, his expression indecipherable.

Joan sits upright with a start. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘No bother,’ he replies, eyeing her with something like surprise. ‘I didn’t know you fancied Mozart.’

‘I didn’t know it either,’ she says. His lips briefly curl up.

She makes a move as if to get up and stop the record, but he gestures that he doesn’t mind. The music goes on, but she finds listening to it difficult. She darts quick glances at Morse who has taken a seat on the other side of the fireplace.

He is as much listening to the concerto as observing her, so she cuts through Mozart’s strains and asks Morse point-blank, ‘How can you stand it?’

He looks at her inquiringly. ‘Stand what?’ He gestures vaguely towards the record player. ‘Classical music? I could ask you the same about modern gigs!’

‘No. How can you—’ She breaks off. It’s important to find the right words. ‘How can you put it all behind you, the—the blood, the death. What people do to each other?’

She shudders. Her own words resurrect a darkness she wants so dearly to forget. But the ghosts which slipped past the hall table and crowded her parents’ house, followed her there, and she understands that their shadows are the same ones which prevented her to think. She has to get rid of them.

She doesn’t know it, but her face has taken a pinched, haggard look. Morse’s gaze softens as he replies thoughtfully, ‘Comes with the territory, I’m afraid. Apart from that, my Governor once told me to “put my best record on loud and to remember that’s something that the darkness cannot take from me.” Good advice, that.’

‘Even this?’ She picks up the record slipcase and brandishes it towards him. ‘Music that tears at your soul?’

‘There’s healing in music, too, Miss Thursday,’ he replies softly. ‘But sometimes, it just takes time.’

‘Time...’ She finds it hard to meet his eyes. ‘Time,’ she repeats savagely, ‘is the last commodity I have.’ She springs to her feet. ‘I really must be going.’

Swiftly, Joan crosses the room to the alcove and reaches Morse’s bed. She left her shoes by its foot. She just has to slip them on, put on her coat, pick up her suitcase, and she’ll be gone. Where to, she doesn’t know, but her momentum will silence the ghosts for a while, she hopes.

Morse is faster than she is. He now stands between her and her goal and she suddenly feels stupid. She wavers and he puts a restraining hand lightly on her arm. ‘Miss Thursday, do stay.’ As an afterthought, he adds, ‘Please.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

Again, that question she cannot really answer. Not easily, not quickly, anyway.

‘I—I don’t…’ At last she ventures, because she has to say something. ‘I’m a jinx. I’ll get you killed, too.’ Said out loud, it sounds ludicrous.

He gives a brief shout of a laugh. ‘You won’t. Since I was in Oxford, I’ve been shot at, stabbed, beaten up, and I don’t know what else. Accident-prone, your father says. If that didn’t kill me, I doubt any of your doing could achieve it.’ Her eyes widen in surprise, and he snorts derisively. There is a bitter sound to it. ‘Seriously, Miss Thursday, you can do better than that. That’s not the reason you’re leaving.’

He has a point. She’s dissembling. She’s the unreliable one, the girl who lies through her teeth, consorts with bad boys and gets good blokes killed.

‘Matthews chose to shoot Gidderton. You didn’t,’ declares Morse, and she understands then that she said the last sentence aloud. ‘His choice, not yours. And he’ll pay the price for it.’

‘Ronnie Gidderton paid full price!’

‘So he did, but it was his choice, too.’ Seeing puzzlement in her eyes, he elaborates, ‘He struck a bargain with Matthews. Everybody safely out, except for a copper. I tried to—’ His voice drops. ‘—to warn him. Honour among robbers is a pretty tale, not the truth. He might have escaped alive, had he kept quiet.’

He speaks with such earnest sincerity that she finds herself listening to him.

Gently, he takes her by the hand and leads her back to the armchair. The record has run its course and statics sizzles out of the speaker. She never noticed it. Morse switches off the record player, and offers her a bit to eat. She agrees. Since she’ll be his guest for a while longer, better indulge him.

Tea and silence warm her. It’s companionable, not demanding. She understands that she can say anything to him and that he’ll put all his—‘considerable,’ Dad once said—intellect at her disposal. And something more she doesn’t want to dwell upon right now.

‘I wanted something to happen.’ In one breath, her voice shatters the lull. She hadn’t foreseen it.

He just sits there, waiting for her to go on.

‘What?’ he finally asks a moment later, as she stays quiet after that opening.

‘I wish I knew…something.’ She raises her head from the shelter of her knees. Her legs stretch out before her. ‘Do you know I almost joined a friend in a Kibbutz? Might have been way too far, anyway.’

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down.

‘I—I was in a sort of limbo, waiting for something to happen. But then—’ she swallows hard.

‘Not quite what you expected.’

‘No.’ Involuntarily, she lets out a laugh, and tries to ignore how hysterical she sounds. ‘Well, life is unexpected, isn’t it?’

‘J—Miss Thursday,’ he begins.

‘Ah!’ She claps her hands and exclaims, ‘You finally did it. Well, almost!’

Uneasiness flicks across his face.

‘My name! You almost said it. Well, stick to “J”. I’ll call you “E”,’ she affirms, greatly daring.

He seems even more mystified now, and a bit wary.

‘“E. Morse, Detective Constable, City Police”. Remember?’

Her face falls at her own words. Her last sloppy attempt at levity was a mistake. She doesn’t want to recollect where she learned it, yet all the same, her mind keeps circling round it, avoiding the nucleus of the pain yet checking on it.

Valiantly, she decides to tackle it. What’s worse, having a tooth pulled, or fretting at the dentist’s beforehand? She throws her head back in an unconsciously defiant gesture. ‘I—I told Paul about the float. Without me, there wouldn’t have been…’ Her voice trails away and fades.

‘Merely confirmation,’ Morse contradicts. ‘Bank robbers don’t rely on one source.’

‘I blabbed! Like a brook!’ Anger flares at him. She feels strangely bereft, without her self-blame.

‘There’s worse. I—I…’ Joan inhales sharply, and her face seeks the shelter of her hands. Her voice is muffled when she says ‘I was glad, in a way, I guess.’ There is anguish lurking when she looks up at Morse, but her wide stare goes farther, in another time, another place, as she whispers ‘I was gl—glad it was him, and not you, or—or me.’ Disgust at herself drip from her voice and makes it quake. ‘I wished Ronnie dead for what he did to you.’

She pauses, as if it would help him understand. ‘Now you see?’ Now, will you see what a monster I am? Decidedly not the nice girl you thought you knew.

There’s compassion in Morse’s eyes, but he resists the impulse—if he ever felt it—to reach out to her and comfort her with a hand on her shoulder, or a patting on her knee. She’s glad. Most men would have. But ‘E.’ Morse stays where he is, his blue eyes considerate although tinged with cynicism.

‘Human nature. Try not to linger too much on it. “The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast”—’ she hears him whisper, ‘till the ensuing one.’

He runs his hand through his hair. She takes a sip of her tea.

‘Give it time,’ he says as he did this morning, a lifetime ago. This time, the words filter through and reach her soul, a little dew thrown over a raging fire.

Words glide between them; just not about the elephant in the room, Fred Thursday.

Aftermath

Whatever Joan’s wishes may have been, it is she who ends up sleeping in Morse’s bed.

For all her arguing, Morse’s stubbornness wins fair and square: she gets the bed—she even offered to go to a hotel and not leave Oxford without letting him know. He countered with his leaving her his flat, for goodness sake!—he gets the armchair. At the end, she relents and for the time being, they both share his tiny one-bedroom flat. He bears the discomfort of her presence with outward equanimity.

In the morning, they take turns in the bathroom, bump into each other in the kitchen corner. She has to laugh at their awkwardness. They are all angles and formality, prickly as porcupines walking on eggshells as if they didn’t know each other at all—she’s mixing her metaphors. Yet, hovering in her parents’ entrance isn’t the same as playing host to a wayward daughter, making the best of a bad deal.

She notices that he ponders his spoken words, as if a wrong one would shatter her completely.

She learns that he needs time on his own, reaching inside or to a place where he is happily alone. It’s not loneliness, not really, it’s self-containment. It’s weirdly different from home, but it suits her fine.

By the third evening, she is used to turning her head and seeing Morse focused on his crosswords, his brow creased in concentration, a bottle of beer within reach. Joan is stretched out in his only armchair, her feet propped on the coffee table, luxuriating in her latest discovery. After Mozart, she is tentatively exploring his Debussy and Britten records. It is quite a change from her usual fare, but she welcomes it—‘She’s leaving home’ is going round and round in her mind and the ripples coming from The Beatles’ song threaten to pull her under. Classical music drowns these discordances.

Morse is right. Some music is soothing, even after a secluded day of quiet.

He leaves the conversation, any conversation, up to her, and it’s soothing, too, this lack of inquiry, even though he often seems on the verge to say ‘call your parents, it’s the right thing to do.’ At least, that’s what she imagines. Morse is too much the decent chap not to think it.

This temporary peace lulls her to self-forgiveness. Her heart breathes between the silences.

The fourth night, she finds herself wide awake; the nightmare can’t be shaken away. Breathing in and out methodically, persuading the too vivid images into nothingness, Joan stares at the ceiling for what seems like hours. The brown-streaked net curtain, drawn between “bed chamber” and “living room” for privacy, is like a wandering cloud, but the shapes it evokes are crawling grasping hands reminiscent of the malignant trees in Disney’s Snow White. Sleep still eludes her. She swings her legs from the bed and goes to the window. The street is wrapped in stillness.

Between the ill-closed curtains, a sliver of street light slashes the windows in two. It slants across Morse’s face, sculpting his nose and cheekbones with uncanny accuracy. Relaxed in sleep, he looks ten years younger, more fragile somehow. When he is alert, despite his slight frame and old-fashioned courtesy, there is steel behind that often gawky exterior.

He’s snoring lightly, and it touches her. He’s stretched out in the armchair she now appropriates in the evening and ensconced in a blanket. Despite the additional pillow, his head angles in a way that will guarantee him a stiff neck on the morning. Her hand hovers over his face, the caress left undone.

She fakes sleep when he tiptoes on to check on her.

Before it engulfs her, she has the time to wonder: is “E.” standing for Edward, Eric, Elias, Ethan, Elijah, Eugene, Edgar or Elliot? Maybe Evan?

Morse doesn’t complain about his stiff neck, his additional grocery trips, his unwanted guest, or her mood swings. He doesn’t mention her father or the outer world. He lets her set her own pace in the cocoon he provides.

It increases Joan’s remorse and makes her more impatient to untangle her messy bundle of indecisions. However, it takes her five nights before she takes the first step towards action.

First things first, she’ll have to resign properly from the Wessex Bank.

When Morse goes off for the day, he hesitates and glances back as he nears the door. She hastens to announce, ‘I’m not leaving Oxford.’

He doesn’t comment on her decision, but Joan can see that he’s relieved. She’s getting quite adept at deciphering his face. She adds, the words issuing with more strain, “I have to go to the bank—to resign. Also to get some cash.”

He blinks, and offers almost bashfully, ‘Needing some company?’

As a matter of fact, yes, she admits. The mere idea of setting foot in the building makes her skin crawl. Also, there will be curious stares from Mr. Fordyce, Gillian, customers—those who know her face and read about it in The Oxford Mail. She’ll be the ten minute wonder, an exhibit dispelling the dullness of the afternoon.

Joan doesn’t demur for long. Morse presses his advantage, and she agrees to meet with him. He’ll take the time off for personal reasons, he affirms; no trouble at all. Mr. Bright will be agreeable after… He doesn’t mention her Dad, and something in his avoidance of the subject proves that he is not presently seeing eye-to-eye with DI Thursday.

Another notch up her pistol, she thinks bitterly. She managed to insert a wedge into the best team of the City Police.

Thanks to Morse, her visit to the Wessex Bank is less terrifying than she feared. Mr. Fordyce is all smiles, crossing the lobby as soon as he spots her. He whisks them away to his office and makes no difficulties. Sure, he looks quite oddly at Morse, but the latter returns his gaze with some irony.

Joan signs all the papers presented to her and agrees to leave her money at the bank. Her previous staff advantages are left to her—‘a compensation for the…unpleasantness,’ Mr. Fordyce says with unctuosity. At that, Morse huffs derisively and raises his eyes heavenward.

She feels a thousand stones lighter when they exit. The weather has taken a turn for the better, and it really smells like spring. Joan takes Morse’s arm and asks, ‘Care for a stroll? I’ve been cooped up long enough.’ She smiles. ‘Not that your flat isn’t…’

‘Words fail you, I get it.’ He smiles.

‘Er—not that I’m not grateful… I am, however—’

‘It’s on the small side for the two of us.’ Is there a hint of disappointment in his voice? She absorbs that.

‘I can’t intrude on you much longer. I have to get my act together.’ She smiles up at him, a smile that reaches her eyes for once. ‘Thank you Morse, you’ve been a good friend to me. The very best.’

They walk in silence, until they reach the Radcliffe Camera. Joan has always liked it. It surges out of the lawn like an overgrown Romanised pastry, all roundness and balance. Time has mellowed its walls into soft chocolate brownie tones. The grey of the slates merge into the vagrant clouds.

‘Let’s sit for a while, shall we?’ she suggests.

They find a bench. Even in repose, Morse doesn’t keep still. He fidgets without fidgeting, eyes watchful, tautness obvious in his hands. They twitch faintly as he leans back, then enfolds them into the pockets of his coat.

Joan sits at a slight angle, observing him. She’ll miss him more than she thought she would. As a matter of fact, she already misses him, even though she hasn’t told him yet.

She has taken to him in a way that her previous fancies hadn’t prepared her for. It’s not friendliness, it’s more than that, but it’s not a crush either. She can’t call it love, not yet. There is gratitude in her feelings, but it’s a garnish for an underlying blend of tenderness, admiration, and of all those previous moments of light flirtation that obviously passed far above his head. She wishes she could get to know him, deep inside. She may never have that chance.

He notices her gaze and smiles self-consciously, baffled at her scrutiny.

She asks before she can take a cowardly way out. ‘How’s Dad? Truly? I need to know.’

He heaves a relieved sigh. Clearly, it’s bothered him some, this avoidance of hers regarding her family.

Unease comes creeping, but Joan forges on. She has to confront it, even though the days she lost wallowing on her misery might weight heavily in the future. ‘I know I haven’t mentioned Dad and Mum. I—I needed to—’ Words rush out. ‘How am I supposed to take care of him if I can’t hold myself together?’

‘And you can, now?’ Morse turns a searching gaze on her. He leans forward, then checking himself, shifts sideward.

Her jaw clenches. ‘Dad’s cough. It’s not a cold.’

‘I honestly don’t know. But it probably isn’t.’ She raises frightened eyes, but before she can probe deeper, he volunteers: ‘I wouldn’t put too much trust on anything Matthews said. I didn’t hear him cough since that day.’

‘You’re not joined at the hip! You wouldn’t know!’

‘No. But I heard it often enough.’

‘And still, you didn’t say!’

‘It wasn’t my place to say!’

Joan considers his answer then nods decisively. ‘Right. I can accept that.’ Her knuckles whiten on her handbag. ‘What can I do? Dad won’t tell. Mum may not know.’

Morse doesn’t hesitate. ‘Call them, anyway. Mrs. Thursday’s beside herself, worrying if she did something wrong, and he’s been…’ Unusually for him, he struggles for the precise word.

No need. She can picture it, if Dad has been half as edgy as he was those last few weeks...it wasn’t pretty. Not with Mum and herself, of course, but she felt a tightness in him like a coiled wire, ready to burst forth as any time. A darkness that exploded in her face when he—But who is she to blame him? She’s her father’s daughter. She’s the same. ‘Thursday’s child is full of grace’… Ha!

She snorts, and Morse looks curiously at her. It doesn’t derail her thinking. If she had been less focused on Paul Marlock and more on… Hindsight is such a beautiful thing! It allows one to see crystal-clear… afterwards.

‘Don’t blame yourself.’ Morse’s voice. She raises her head. He’s been watching her closely, as he’s been doing since the heist. ‘You couldn’t know.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘Advice is cheap, I know.’ His mouth twists. ‘Alas, all that I can provide, along with a bed, ears and a little money, should you need it.’

‘Thanks, Morse. I appreciate it, but I’ve got to make my way in the world.’

At her mock pomposity and her denial, his first reaction is to congeal and look sort of haughty, before he follows her lead. ‘Banking is out, I gather. So what? Clerking?’

‘There might be some openings in Oxford. I’ll check the Oxford Mail.’ She raises her head, animation on her face, now that number two of her mental list is checked. ‘Got any old copies?’

‘No. Only the crosswords sections,’ he admits with a quick lopsided smile, and her heart misses a beat. ‘You’ve got it bad,’ says her traitorous heart.

‘Of course!’ She laughs, to dispel the butterflies in her stomach.

‘But we could check them out at the bullpen. Miss Frazil owes me a favour or two,’ he suggests.

Morse precedes Joan as they climb the spiral staircase leading to The Oxford Mail offices. He pushes the door open, then stands aside to let her go ahead. She looks around with a frank curiosity.

For the nurturing core of a newspaper with such a distinguished history, the bullpen is nothing like her imaginings. At first glance, the not-so large space looks messy, an amalgamation of desks arranged in random rows, until Joan understands that there’s some sort of disorganised order in it. A few reporters are pounding on their typewriters or talking vehemently on the phone. Such is the level of the background buzz—clangs, exclamations, paper sheets being torn out violently out of the machines, phone rings and curt conversations—that she wonders how any work can be done in the midst of such racket.

But the noise doesn’t seem to strike Morse at all. Decidedly, he progresses across the bullpen towards Miss Frazer’s office. It’s only a little farther, but not so far as its occupant cannot survey what’s going on in her territory. A huge part of the interior walls is made of glass, Joan notes, and if she wants privacy, all Miss Frazer has to do is to lower the blinds completely. The door of her office is wide open, though.

She’s on the phone as they reach it. ‘Well, get to it, then!’ she snaps. She pauses to listen then shakes her head as she replies, ‘No, no, Orwell’ll take care of it.’

She slams the receiver down, nods briskly at Morse and yells over the noise, ‘Orwell! Claudine!’

A few seconds later, Joan hears footsteps behind her. The eager couple responding to the summon is about her age; the young woman, French by the sound of her first name, looks curiously at her, more interestedly at Morse, then focuses keenly on Miss Frazil. ‘Road accident, school bus, no casualties, children,’ emerges from the rapid fired instructions flung at her. The reporters hasten away, the woman making a quick detour to her desk to pick up a camera and a bag.

Miss Frazil’s hazel eyes beckon them in. ‘Morse. Miss Thursday. What can I do for you?’

Morse explains courteously. ‘It won’t take too much of your time. We’d like to browse the last issues of the Oxford Mail.’

‘Looking for something in particular?’

Morse’s smile turns innocent. ‘The classifieds of the week.’

Miss Frazil’s eyes grow intent. Surely, knowing Morse’s knack for riddles and hidden codes, she suspects a juicy story. Morse’s corners of his mouth stretch wider while his face turns suddenly neutral. Observing them, Joan cut in, before he involuntarily leads her astray, ‘There’s no story in it, Miss Frazil, really. I’m looking for a job, and I’d appreciate if you let me browse the classified jobs ads.’

‘Ah.’ She takes a cigarette and lights it. ‘Your father told me you were away from Oxford. “Recuperating,” he said.’ Faint disbelief colours her affirmation.

‘I was recuperating, alright, but in Oxford. And now I need a new job. So…’ Better come clean, the truth will out anyway, Joan reasons. Miss Frazil is supposed to have ears all over the city.

‘And she must swim again,’ says Morse in an undertone.

‘Indeed.’ Miss Frazil transfers her gaze to Joan who feels like fidgeting, so intense is that gaze. It seems able to see past her outward skin, into the tumult of her fears and confusion and expectations. Slightly frowning, Miss Frazil seems to reach a decision.

‘How are you at organising files?’ she abruptly asks Joan.

‘Err—good, I suppose. I re-organized three years’ worth of loans last year. Why?’

‘Interested by a temp’ job? Part time, too, I’m afraid.’ Miss Frazil grimaces. ‘Ann—our archivist—slipped and broke her leg last week. Partied too hard to celebrate her definite appointment, I suppose. She won’t be able to hop up and down those stairs for some months yet.’

‘I—err… Yes, yes, I would.’ It sounds a much too easy answer to her prayers, but Joan doesn’t want to look at it too closely.

‘Kindly refrain from doing the same,’ Miss Frazil says wryly.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Joan vows fervently.

Behind her, Morse clears his throat. ‘Well then, I’ll leave you to it.’ A flick of the wrist, a quick check of his watch and he says regretfully, ‘I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’m wanted elsewhere.’

‘Work?’ asks Joan, as if anything else were imaginable.

‘Work,’ he confirms. ‘Miss Frazil… Miss Thursday…’ And with a slight nod, he leaves without a backward glance.

Joan watches him leave, then turns her head away, realising that Miss Frazil is eyeing her intently. ‘Nice young man, isn’t he?’

‘He is,’ agrees Joan, hoping that the editor of The Oxford Mail won’t quiz her about her relationship with Morse. But Dorothea Frazil contents herself with the specifics of the job and her pay, and doesn’t stray from that path.

It’s only when Joan is about to take her leave that she asks, ‘Do you have a place to stay right now?’

Joan jumps and stammers, ‘I do, thanks…’

But her hesitant reply doesn’t satisfy the editor. ‘I have a spare bed which could accommodate a guest for a few weeks, if need be. This won’t be any trouble. I’m usually home late, and then…’ She gestures vaguely with her cigarette.

Joan closes her mouth, realising that her lips are parted in surprise. Miss Frazil goes on, ‘It’d be… awkward for your young man to shelter you anymore.’

Feeling her cheeks growing hot, Joan swiftly denies, ‘I’m not his girl!’ and blushes hotter at her verbal slip-up. Miss Frazil openly swallows her smirk.

‘How—?’ asks Joan. Her hands tighten around her handbag. Is the whole of Oxford aware that she shares Morse’s flat?

Miss Frazil’s ashes carefully fall in her ashtray. ‘All that is said between these walls doesn’t get printed, Miss Thursday.’

‘Then why?’ Joan insists, seeing that Miss Frazil’s mouth has closed in a thin line. ‘Why are you helping me? Not because you owe one or two to Morse, surely?’

Dorothea Frazil sighs. ‘No. I’ve seen these eyes of yours staring at me often enough in the faces of young men in Korea.’

‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘Let’s just say that what I couldn’t do then, I’m doing now, and let it go at that.’

The look on her face suggests that there is no point in arguing, and Joan doesn’t even try.

She’ll begin next Monday, it is decided. It leaves her three days in Morse’s company, then. She doesn’t know if she’s pleased at the idea of letting him reclaim his bed and full night sleep or if she already regrets agreeing to be Miss Frazil’s guest.

As she saunters down the wrought iron stairs, Joan is so focused on her new prospects that she fails to recognise Jim Strange. A few feet away, he watches her turn the corner leading into the passage with a deep frown, and promptly hides behind a nearby corner. Abandoning his previous purpose, he follows her stealthily, shadowing her until she pushes the gate leading to Morse’s flat.

Fortified by her new job, on the following morning when Morse has gone, Joan phones home. Her fingers shake as she dials the familiar number.

‘Mum?’

Joan hears a sharp intake of breath on the line then her mother says in a wavering voice: ‘Joan? Is that you?’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Love swells and floods Joan with a wave that gradually recedes, leaving behind it foam tinged with guilt.

‘Joan! Where are you? How are you?’ Sentences come spilling out in a heap and Joan guesses rather than hears what her mother says.

‘I’m fine now. I’m at a friend’s, I—’

She doesn’t have the time to elaborate. Distorted by more than distance, Win’s voice pleads in a hurry: ‘Joan, please, please, don’t hang up! Dad is still here…’ Joan hears the tiny bump of the receiver placed on the side table, and, in somewhat muffled form, her mother calling out: ‘Fred! Fred! Joan’s on the line!’

Hurried steps come through. Then a voice coloured by panting rings in her ear. ‘Joan? Is that you?’

‘Yes, Dad. I’m fine, I’m—’

‘Where are you? Oxford?’

‘Yes.’ She hastens to ask before he digs deeper, ‘How are you?’

‘Good, now. But, Joan…’

She gnaws at her lower lip. ‘Dad, how good are you? Matthews… he said that you—’

‘Is that what got you calling?’ He sounds furious and not a little bit disappointed. ‘Your mother…’

She’s a fool. Dad wouldn’t admit to anything with Mom lurking in the background. He can’t. And then, what if he did? She goes back to the nine to five? Tea in front of the telly with closemouthed parents who won’t relate vital stuff? These last days have brought a change in her. She’s not their little girl anymore, she’s a woman hovering on the edge of a new path, tentatively feeling her way.

‘No. I wanted to let you know I’m alright, that’s all.’

‘You need some money?’

‘I can manage, thanks.’

He huffs, and with an uncanny effect of reading her thoughts, says, ‘Who is he?’

‘Who’s who?’

‘The bloke taking you in.’

‘Oh, some bloke knocked all of a heap by my fatal beauty, I expect,’ she jokes—but it might even be the truth. ‘How did you guess?’

‘I made the rounds of your friends,’ he says tersely, and she has a vision of him paying calls to all her usual cronies, leaving questions in his wake. Great! She’ll have to fend off their curiosity, next time they see.

She hastens to deflect her father’s suspicions, ‘No, actually I’m bunking on Miss Frazil’s spare bed. She also offered me a temp job.’

A louder murmur of voices in the background makes Joan’s ears prick up. Morse’s voice modulates, her mother’s replies. She must have beckoned him in. No way may he have come in from his own compulsion. At least, Morse now knows she stuck to her word. She can picture him: hunched shoulders, feet shuffling, looking as if he wished to melt into the front door he’s leaning on.

Fred Thursday’s disappointment draws her back into their conversation. ‘She didn’t say, last I saw her.’

‘I asked her not to,’ she snaps back. ‘It’s high time I stand on my own.’

‘Joan,’ he scolds in so mild a manner that she’s ashamed of her outburst, ‘we worried about your safety.’

‘I’m safe. I was in a safe place.’ Quoting Morse feels right, even though it suddenly dawns on her with blinding clarity how much of a risk with his career he took for her.

She won’t dodge her father’s cross-examination for much longer so she says, ‘I can’t stay on the phone. I’ll give you a call. Kiss Mum for me,’ and she hangs up.

All things considered, it wasn’t that bad. No, the phone call hadn’t gone too terribly.

Chapter Text

Epilogue

Her new job is fine. Reorganising the newspaper morgue is a part-time endeavour, so Miss Frazil also gives her some typing to do. With that, answering the phone and doing some secretarial work, Joan’s workdays pass quickly. It’s been ten weeks since the bank heist, and she doesn’t feel the need any more to make a detour in order to avoid the area of the Wessex Bank.

She also enjoys being Miss Frazil’s guest; the older woman is full of advice and tales whom her sense of humour and her world-weary style make fascinating hearing. She seems to enjoy her company. Nevertheless Joan is looking for some cheap accommodation. This is fine as a stopgap, but she can’t cramp Miss Frazil’s style for much longer.

The Thursdays have ceased to entice her to come back home, and Joan finds she enjoys her dinners with them with a new perception and a keener love for them. They are adults, not paragons she could not, would not emulate. ‘Home’ is no longer her home, it’s her parents’ place, but she doesn’t let them share that new awareness. She’s flown the nest for good. They will find out soon enough. In the meantime, Joan has learned one important lesson: relish the ones you love, every day, as best you can. It may not be enough, but it’s all that mankind can grasp, this fleeting happiness. Moreover, Fred Thursday has returned to normal, his cough a thing of the past, so Joan can only hope that the peril is past.

Spring has almost morphed into summer when Joan realises that she needs something more. More than being on the fringe of Oxford’s news, old scandals, ads, or disclosures of political shenanigans and people’s lives. Looking on isn’t enough anymore. Observational distance has to be replaced with diving into the fray.

She wants to help during what borrowed time she’s living on: life is fragile, she found out. Sure, she desires the best available future, but helping others build theirs is an urge that slowly takes root. Seeing death staring at her in the face has cured her of some of her self-centred lightness. ‘I was so young!’ marvels her new-found experience. And she waves it away because, deep down, she’s aware that new unforeseen heartaches will teach her new lessons soon enough.

One evening, during one of the impromptu dinners—‘dinners, not dates,’ she frequently cautions herself—she now shares with —‘Erik? Everett?’— Morse, she discloses her new purpose. He smiles a boyish grin, rubs the back of his neck thoughtfully and suggests Social Services. He happens to have met Viv Wall—‘forceful woman. A battering ram with a smile, you’ll like her’—and his opinion is like a red flag in front of Joan’s eyes. By the twinkling in his eyes, he’s fully aware of that.

‘Hard work,’ Morse considers, ‘but rewarding.’ He pauses. ‘Most of the time. And sorely needed, anyway.’

‘Like yours?’

‘No. You’ll deal with the living, I usually uphold belated justice. Such as it is.’

His brow creases. Despite the glorious weather, he’s melancholy. Joan tries to worm information out of him, but she only learns that he made an honest mistake regarding Mrs. Pettybon’s daughter, promptly followed by some kind of retribution. Compassion will be Morse’s downfall, it seems. Morse seems genuinely sad for the girl. Sad, not interested, she notes thankfully.

Recounting his meeting with The Wildwood is as terse. When much of the female population of Oxford—and also quite a lot of the males, to be honest!—would hop in delight after any close encounter with the current heartthrobs, Morse doesn’t seem impressed, merely wary. He only waxes lyrical on their current Palladian abode and the beauties of the grounds.

Morse and rock ‘n roll, gosh, imagine that! Joan smothers a smile at this mind boggling collision.

A few days later, Joan is fleetingly pondering the hidden secrets of the upcoming headline blaring ‘Teenage Heartbreak: The Wildwood To Disband’ on the front page when Claudine pokes her head through the corner of her so-called office. She minds the interruption. Keeping track of the archives sent to the microfilming company is tough; the lists written before she tackled the task were made without any regard for common sense. However, Claudine merely tosses, ‘Joan, your chéri’s admitted at Crawley Hospital!’ and she turns tail, leaving Joan petrified in her wake.

‘What?’ Joan cries out. She springs from her seat and catches up with Claudine. ‘You mean Morse? How did you know?’

‘Oh! I was in the neighbourhood. Les hôpitaux are food for news, you know,’ Claudine smirks. What shakes Joan is clearly nothing but a missed opportunity to bring a smashing photograph for the front page for her.

In a whirl, Joan grabs her coat and handbag and leaves the premises, hurling as she crosses the bullpen, ‘Tell Miss Frazil that I’ve absolutely got to go. Something came up!’

She has no idea how she finds a taxi, doesn’t recollect how she manages to voice her destination. She finds herself in the lobby of the hospital, clutching at the desk and asking for E. Morse’s whereabouts. It seems a century before the attendant looks up and searches his files.

‘Morse?’ He looks uninterested. Daily occurrences for him, Joan reasons, yet it means the world to me.

‘Endeavour Morse?’

‘Yes.’ Endeavour?

‘Jenner Ward, 2nd floor, Toxicology.’

The lift is full. Joan runs up the stairs and reaches the right floor, panting so much that it takes additional seconds before she can ask for directions.

Morse is almost alone in the room. The other occupied bed is at the far end, cut off by drapes severely drawn. Morse’s bed is also surrounded by almost completely drawn curtains that let in a light as white as the bedpost. Their grey folds cannot mask the utter wrongness of Morse laying there bereft of rationality, as he half-heartedly attempts to curl up in his sleep, entangled in light blue sheets and probably ensnared in deeper coloured nightmares.

His face is god-awful, not white but light grey, as if his thoughts had bled out and begun mingling with the pastiness of his skin. His freckles stand out like blotches of autumn leaves in a spectral impressionistic winter landscape.

‘Just a few minutes, Miss Thursday’ the Matron previously cautioned Joan. ‘He won’t be aware of you, anyhow.’ His visual and auditory hallucinations are gone, but he could nonetheless suffer a reprieve, the woman explained—because she clearly assumed that Joan was Morse’s girlfriend; her frantic questions took care of that.

‘There is nothing wrong now that rest and time won’t cure,’ Joan was told. Morse’s body is taking care of itself—better than he usually does—by slowly ridding itself from the cocktail of drugs some crazed woman got into him. He’s ambling sluggishly back from a journey few survived. To Hell and back isn’t a favoured holiday’s destination. ‘He woke up,’ the Matron added helpfully. ‘But Mr. Morse is resting now, as he should, since Mr. Thursday’s gone.’ The look she darts at Joan impress on her that she’d rather do the same. However, as she’s here, she may as well have a look-see.

The strap of her handbag cuts into Joan’s fingers. She slips behind the curtains, divests herself of it on the tablet at the foot of Morse’ bed and creeps up to check him out.

His last attempt to bury himself in his pillow failing, Morse turns around. He’s now facing Joan, tousled auburn hair etched like a cardboard cut-out on the muted background of the pillow.

Joan’s fingertips are burning with the need to touch him. Cautiously, almost timidly, she brushes the hair from his brow. He may still be a little feverish but his skin feels almost normal to her touch. Slowly, she traces the lines of his face, the distinctive cheekbones—the blemish he endured in her defence now long gone—, the brow under which thoughts flow in a tempo she cannot match. When she reaches his mouth, her finger lingers a touch away, but instead, her lips bestow a butterfly-like caress on his.

‘Take care of yourself, Morse,’ she whispers.

Joan draws back a little, but yielding to a long repressed urge, she kisses him again, her hands encircling his face, her lips pressing more firmly on his. Now, she’s pretty certain of it, the feeling singing in her veins and drawing her towards him is called love.

As she’s about to end the kiss, she feels his lips respond underneath hers. She doesn’t react at first as he takes an abrupt hold of her. ‘Joan, don’t go—love…’ he mumbles, and she is lost as he pulls her fiercely to him.

Tumbling across his chest and reaching instinctively for support, her fingers find warm flesh and undershirt and hold onto his shoulders as he kisses her more deeply, spinning them around until she is half-pinned on the bed. Even her bones are melting against his touch. His mouth is doing all sort of gratifying things to hers, but she pulls away reluctantly.

‘Endeavour, please,’ she breathlessly pleads, ‘please stop…’

His hold on her slackens. Blue eyes snap open, hands hastening to rub them fully awake. Under a startled frown, Morse’s gaze focuses hazily on her. ‘Joan?’ he slurs. He blinks several times and suddenly flushes red. His skin colour is nearly normal now, Joan wickedly notices.

‘Miss Thursday—I…’ he stammers, backing away as far as possible against the bedpost.

‘Endeavour Morse!’ Joan also sits up on the creased sheets, reaches for him and promptly kisses him again. She feels his intake of surprise against her breath. This time, there is no hesitation, as he circles her waist with firm hands and draws her closer.

Joan ends up snuggled against his chest as he winds his arms around her. The top of her head is high enough to rest under his chin—‘perfect,’ she contentedly savours. She glances up at him. Morse’s smile threatens to split his face in two. Despite sunken eyes and the obvious strain around the mouth, he’s never been more handsome in her eyes.

After a while Endeavour inquires, ‘Joan…’

Cured at last of his Miss Thursday-ing? Wonders never cease. Joan nestles more closely against him.

‘—what brought this on?’

‘Hmmm…’ Joan ponders with mock indecision. She casts a quick mischievous glance up at him. ‘I couldn’t resist. You were like a—a—Sleeping Beauty…’ She refrains from giggling at Morse’s endearingly embarrassed grimace. ‘A sleeping prince, rather, if you pref—’

‘—snoring in a field of poppies,’ he rasps, letting go of her to reach for the waiting glass of water on the side table.

Joan can’t help it. She bursts into relieved laugh. It’s not that funny, but if Morse is able to make sport of his poisoning, it means that he’s truly really aware of her. She’s not merely a fantasy of his; she’s flesh and blood and future. He’s too bloody decent for it to be otherwise.

‘Loss of inhibition’ was one of the possible effects of his involuntary drug consumption, explained the Matron to Joan, and gosh, does it feels good right now! Not to belittle the sheer awfulness of his sufferings, but without them, they would probably have tiptoed around each other until Doomsday.

‘You weren’t snoring,’ she teases. ‘Not much.’

He sits up straighter in his bed and observes her quizzically as she gets off the bed and fluffs his pillows energetically.

‘There! Perfect,’ she asserts, admiring her handiwork.

‘As perfect as your fabled fairy tale ending? Magic, bold princesses and sleeping princes? Happily ever after?’ he questions with a huge pinch of bitterness. ‘There is no magic in our world. It’s all fantasy.’ He turns serious, reaches for her left hand and considers it. ‘Life can turn out how you want it to be. Occasionally.’ His eyes are clear but still apprehensive.

‘Alright, all fairy tales don’t have fairy tales endings,’ Joan retorts flippantly. ‘Yet remember the frog!’

‘Turns out he was a prince.’ Endeavour’s tone is sullen; he probably wanted to say ‘a doomed prince.’

‘Just what I said,’ she answers. ‘A bloody prince, when properly kissed.’

A ghost of a laugh lets her understand how he considers her twisted logic.

Her eyes eager, Joan caresses his cheek with her other hand. ‘All we can do is try. Endeavour to make it right. Shall we?’ She also winces at her awful pun; hopefully, it will kick his despondency sky-high.

He nods then smiles up at her. A real, honest-to-goodness smile which makes her heart flip over.

Bending down, she gives him a quick peck on the lips and turns to leave. ‘You need your rest, love,’ she regretfully concedes. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

Turning her back to Morse while snatching her handbag, Joan glimpses a familiar hand drawing furtively the curtains close. She’s standing between Morse and the slim aperture. However, she hastily glances above her shoulder. Fortunately, drowsiness has prevented Endeavour from seeing Fred Thursday’s careful retreat. It’s all for the best. She doesn’t want him burdened with that at the moment.

Never mind what Fred Thursday will say. It will be up to Joan to make her father accept the unavoidable.

If not, well…it’s her life and her future. He’ll have to accept it. Nothing’s too good for ‘his little girl’ but her happiness shall win him over. Hopefully. If not…well, the world is a big one. They can leave Oxford, go abroad or in London. But Joan has a powerful asset: Win. Her Mum won’t make any trouble at all; in the contrary, she’ll be happy to see her Joan ‘settled’ and to have full rein of mothering Morse.

Joan shoulders her bag and exits the room with a bounce in her step. At the end of the corridor, standing by the doors of the lift, her father waits for her, still holding the book of crosswords puzzles he clearly intended to give to Morse. As she gets nearer, he smiles at her, first cautiously, then more widely.

Joan beams back; tomorrow, both of them will give it to him.