Chapter Text
Chapter 1
They were the actions of a dead man.
At least, that what Miskin thought as she saw Adam Dalgliesh launch himself at the man training a gun on him. The DCI hadn’t even been standing that far from Julius Marsh. He had to have known that Marsh would have enough time to get the pistol up and get off a shot at such close range. In his demeanour there had been pain, heartache tightly-reined in. For one who had experienced their own, it was easy to recognize. She and a few constables had been running toward the clifftop, and to her horror Dalgliesh had barreled at Marsh in an impressive rugby tackle, the bullet from the pistol tunneling through his shoulder before he made contact and forced the other man to the ground.
She shouted but she was too far away for her voice to carry. Besides, the wind was in the wrong direction, whipping her words back into her own face, then behind her and away. The men fought, trading blows until Dalgliesh was on the ground and Marsh was kicking him as viciously as you’d kick a tyre on a car that wouldn’t start.
Finally, the wind changed.
“Stop!”
Marsh had stopped, looked up at her approaching at full tilt with constables in tow. For a moment, she was stunned that someone had listened to her call. Then he was falling, backward over the cliff, easy as you please, then he was gone from sight. She didn’t care at that point. Instead, she’d headed straight for Dalgliesh, where he lay breathlessly close to the edge of the rock, winded, bleeding. She pressed her fingers to the wound in his shoulder, her own breathing and heartbeat high.
“I’ve got you.”
He’d been staring up at her, likely unable to move, but at those words, a look came over his face. One she didn’t quite understand, but chalked up to injuries from the fight and the shock of the moment. Miskin gave her radio to one of the constables with an order to call control for medical assist, then she tucked a handkerchief under his jacket, over the wound and resumed the pressure.
“You’re alright. I’ve got you.”
The stern planes of his face softened, and he blinked slowly, the blood on his face dark under the bright sunlight. He whispered something, but she shushed him, afraid he would need to save his strength. When the medics arrived, she told them what had happened and that she was riding with him in the ambulance. She couldn’t hold his hand the entire ride because they needed to work on him, but his eyes stayed open despite the pain he must have been in and she made sure to remain within his line of sight. Maybe it brought him some small comfort that she was there, she didn’t know. But if it had happened to her, she would have wanted to see him in the corner of the vehicle as it sped, siren blaring, toward the hospital. For some reason, it would have helped.
While she had ready any number of excuses why she should stay at the hospital with him, Kate hadn’t needed to provide them to anyone. Her boss hadn’t asked, likely he was fielding calls from top brass about what had occurred and doing his best to throw her under the bus while preserving his own reputation. Forcing her to return the stationhouse might actually allow someone to ask for her side of the story, so he’d left her be.
The bullet went through Dalgliesh’s shoulder, so there was no exploratory surgery to dig it out. They had to check for nerve damage, nicked arteries and the like, then stitch him up. When the doctors brought him back to his room, he was still under heavy anaesthetic and slept for hours. Kate flipped through all of the magazines in the waiting room, paced, drank a coffee, visited the lavatory, and was about to go to the gift shop for another magazine when they said she could see him.
His hospital room smelled of disinfectant and cheap laundry detergent, but it was a private room. Quiet and dimly lit. Kate pulled a chair over to the bed and sat, looking at him. Unsure of what to do, she took out her notebook and reread all the notes she’d taken during the investigation. It was then she replayed those moments on the clifftop, and she recalled what he’d said:
And on his sight the angel burned …
“Still working, Sargent?” He struggled to sit up.
Startled, she yanked her gaze from the notebook to the DCI. Curious, she wanted to know what the words he’d said meant. But how could she ask him – it wasn’t appropriate, was it? He was awake, but his face showed his efforts in concealing the pain of his injuries. And it was possible he didn’t even know what he’d been saying at the time.
“Not really, Sir. Just keeping busy. Didn’t want you to wake up to no one here.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
They sat in the quiet of the room, the earlier hustle and bustle of the ward a dim memory. The lights were low in the room, casting flattering shadows. He didn’t ask how she’d found him or thank her for doing so, but somehow all of it hung in the air, unsaid and heavy enough that it hitched her breath.
She closed the notebook, folded her hands. “How are you feeling?”
He seemed to consider, cataloguing various aches and pains. “I’ve been better. What time is it?”
“Almost midnight.”
His eyes widened ever so slightly as he tried to sit up, but waved off her offer of help. “Have you been here all day?”
She fumbled for her notebook again. “Yes, Sir.”
A few dozen heartbeats passed. “Sergeant. Go get some rest,” he said softly, as he leaned back on the pillows,
“Yes, Sir.” Now that she’d determined he was going to recover, there was no need for her stay. They weren’t family, and they’d only met a few days before. She could finish her report now and not make anything awkward. Miskin slid the notebook into her pocket, gathered her handbag and stood. “Can I get you anything before I go?”
“No,” he said, “Thank you.”
“Good night, Sir.”
A fortnight later, her phone at her desk rang. “PS Miskin, this is Adam Dalgleish.”
After suppressing her surprise, she allowed the professional pleasantness in her voice to warm. “Sir. How are you?”
“Fine. And back to work. Speaking of, would you like to come to London and work for me?”
How she managed to keep her composure, she still didn’t know. Her head felt like it had been filled with helium and she would float away at any moment. Words wouldn’t come.
He continued, “It will certainly be more responsibility than you have in your current post with Daniels but I expect you will rise to the occasion.”
“Yes, Sir. I will, Sir.”
###
Another month later, she was working for him, still unsure how it had all happened.
After she’d been in his employ for several months, she overheard that her DCI was a poet, and she wondered if what he’d whispered on the clifftop was a quote from some verse he remembered. During her first case with him, he’d identified a poem the victim’s mother recited and its meaning. Something about losing someone the first time is the hardest.
Miskin went to the library. Back in Dorset, it had been a sanctuary for her. A safe place to spend hours reading stories while she waited for her mother to get off work. Never in all those years had poetry crossed her mind. When she opened the door to a London branch of the country library, the smell of the books was so familiar, it made her stumble a step. Gathering herself, she approached the circulation desk. Behind the desk was an elderly man whose bright gaze belied his age.
“Help you, Miss?”
“Someone quoted what I think is a line of poetry to me and I wanted to know if I’m right. And maybe read the poem. At least I think it’s a poem; I’m not sure how to find out.”
“Can’t ask the quote giver?”
“No, he— No, I can’t.”
“Alright. Give us the line then, I’ll see what I can do with my knowledge. If not, I’ll ask around here. We’ve all got our expertise.”
She told him and the man’s eyes widened, then he smiled. “Ah, that's not a hard one. For me, at the least. It’s a Robert Browning poem, not one of the better-known ones, so your quoter must be a devotee. It’s from ‘The Boy and the Angel’. I can find a copy of it here somewhere.”
Miskin followed his slow progression through the stacks, where he handed her a slim, worn volume before heading back to the front desk. The cover’s binding was still firm, but the cloth cover had faded in places and there were a few water stains. It was light in her grasp.
“Would you like to check it out?”
“I don’t have a card.”
“Easily remedied.”
She filled out the short form he gave her, then he painstakingly wrote out her name and a number on a piece of card embossed with the library’s seal. Then he stamped a date two weeks into the future on an envelope inside the front cover of the book and handed them both to her.
“Enjoy.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, you’re quite lucky to have caught the admiration of a poet who will share a line like that.”
Miskin didn’t want to correct the man and tell him she wasn’t even sure the poet had been in his right mind when he’d spoken the line to her. How could she have Dalgliesh’s admiration? A man as successful and respected and… She stopped her runaway train of thought. “Oh? Why’s that?”
“In a poet’s gaze, one lives forever. In a poet’s heart, one is free.”
She wished she could say without doubt that she lived in either. But there was something that whispered just at the edge of her awareness as she read the poem, and the many volumes she’d checked out from the library since then. Dalgliesh’s volume of poetry, she’d purchased.
That dead man on the cliff had come alive again in the time since they’d met. It was in his stride, the set of his shoulders, the deep, calm delivery of his words that had lost their edge of irritation, but not their weighty power. And Miskin had fallen under his unwitting spell; his concern for her well-being and her comfort was something she’d never had in her working life and if she said she didn’t want that (him) in her personal life that would be a lie of the largest kind.
Reading his poetry had given her some reasonable assurance into the depths of the man, but there was so much more beneath that surface she was sure she’d could happily drown. Not that she understood it completely, but there was a tone that clung to his words and made them seem like they were late night confessions only for her ears. In those circumstances, how could she have helped her feelings? Professionalism had kept her mouth shut, but there were times when she saw his gaze slide over to her when he thought she wasn’t aware of him. The joke was on Dalgliesh; she was always aware of him.
Miskin’s heels echoed on the floors of the Met office as she returned to her desk, jaw set. But there would be no more long car rides, no more discussions of poetry and music as they used to have as DCI and DS. He was being promoted to Commissioner, and she to DI. She would have been happy for it if it didn’t feel like a brush off.
The very much alive poet who had cast off the cloak of grief had also cast her lot. Of course, he had not let her fall. He had risen in the ranks and made sure those in power knew and acknowledged her worth, and given her a chance. Like the gentleman he was, he had stepped aside, placing her in the perfect position to flourish on her own. Without his presence.
Damn him.