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As he did every morning at the station, Carl thumped his boots on the desk and sighed. Only the other regulars didn’t participate. Akram didn’t drop by with a steaming cup of coffee and a faint, warm touch on Carl’s shoulder that his body had come to crave with the intensity of a starving man dreaming of potatoes. Rose didn’t glare at him for disturbing her workflow. Instead, she smiled sweetly. She flicked over a glossy magazine, which haphazardly landed on the tiles between them. At this point, Carl knew his day was fucked.
~~~
Carl should have known it was going to be horrible when Jasper hadn’t been a bitch that morning.
So what, Carl had forgotten to get groceries again. And he’d let the dishes pile up. There was cereal, and when Carl had been at the academy, he’d eaten cereal with orange juice plenty. Yes, sometimes out of the small pots. Jasper seemed to have a problem with it, though – only this morning, he hadn’t said anything. Just looked on in disgust as Carl shovelled food into his mouth, balancing his phone and coffee cup on the counter, and then declared he was going to eat at Gemma’s. And he had smirked.
Yeah, Carl should have known something was up.
~~~
Refusing Rose the satisfaction of giving in, Carl eyed the magazine slumped on the floor in a pitiable heap. It had landed with the pages opened. In his effort not to get caught, Carl only made out what looked like a crystal bottle – perfume, perhaps, or whiskey – and then large, stylish capital letters on the next page. Rose probably wasn’t too hyped about the ad. But Carl refused to collect it to see what exactly those bastards had written. Akram watched their stare-off, but wisely kept his mouth shut. This held the peace, but only until Hardy stepped off the elevator, cane in one hand and yet another magazine in the other, spotted Carl at his desk and grinned like a jackal.
“Have you seen this?” Hardy asked, happily waving the magazine, as he went down the self-made looking ramp Moira had had installed. “Behind The Scowl – Scotland’s Own Sherlock Holmes.”
Carl glared.
“That’s it,” Rose cackled, “That must be the look he gave ‘em.”
Carl glared harder.
“I’m immune,” Rose said. “Also, I’m too happy.”
She picked up the magazine and leaned her hip against Akram’s desk, who had finally given up his act of nonchalance. Carl noticed he still tried to not look too curious. But having studied Akram’s facial expressions religiously over the last nine months, Carl could tell he was close to plucking the magazine straight out of Rose’s hands.
“My favourite part’s this one,” she told Hardy who was busying himself at the coffee machine. Carl looked at it longingly. Had Akram already read the article, and that’s why he’d refused to make Carl coffee? But Carl hadn’t said anything bad about him, had he?
“Still, there’s something magnetic about him,” Rose read out, grinning meanly at Carl. “The kind of handsomeness that sneaks up on you. Not the glossy, symmetrical type of television detectives, but the rough-hewn kind that makes you think of whiskey, cold wind, and emotional repression.”
“I’m partial to the beginning,” Hardy said and then cleared his throat like he was reading a sermon: “There are few things more unnerving than being glared at by a man who looks as though he’s already solved your tax evasion as well as your deepest childhood insecurity before you’ve even taken off your coat. That’s what meeting Carl Morck feels like.”
“And this is gold: Carl Morck, the brooding, middle-aged detective whose methods defy both logic and etiquette, has been called Scotland’s answer to Sherlock Holmes — though Holmes, one suspects, might have found him a touch abrasive,” Rose quoted while squinting at the page.
“That’s enough,” Carl said. Apparently, this time his voice carried enough warning, because Rose shut her gob, and the magazine, too. Carl grabbed it from her and threw it onto his desk. Maybe if there was a lull later, he could have one teeny, tiny look. “Let’s get back to the fucking case, shall we? I’m not paying you to gossip.”
“You’re also not paying us enough not to gossip,” Rose mumbled but subsided, obediently joining Carl in front of the board.
“Actually, Carl isn’t paying us at all.”
Carl turned to look at Hardy who serenely folded his hands over his stomach.
But that seemed to have been the last of it, because Carl got to spend the next hours focusing on conflicting witness statements. Seven months ago, a judge at a local baking contest had dropped dead. The coroner had ruled it an unlikely allergic reaction and the case had been closed. But the judges’ wife had received images of her husband walking into a hotel with another woman and looking awfully cozy. The pictures came paired with the demand for twenty thousand pounds. The wife, Mrs. Canelli, had reported this pitiful blackmail attempt to the police. And now, Carl had to waste his time looking at witness reports that ambled like half a novel, detailing the intricate and horrendously boring relations between the locals; and disgustingly appetite-inducing pictures of the bake-sale goodies.
“Witnesses Rose and I found on Facebook,” Akram said as he suddenly appeared behind Carl, depositing a folder onto his desk. “Could the woman from the picture be one of them?”
Carl reached out to pull the folder over the picture-spread from the article. He had hidden it badly under the case-related paper stacks. With one hand shooting forward, Akram stopped the movement, trapping the glossy pictures in plain view. Well, plain view to them. Rose probably couldn’t witness Carl’s humiliation at being caught gawking at his own high-resolution photographs – or, more accurately, Akram’s, who’d been photographed standing half a step behind Carl, ensconced by warm shadows and with devastatingly dark eyes. Carl tried to push Akram’s hand away. Akram resisted.
“You photograph well,” Akram told Carl. Carl found it difficult to focus (on that, or on anything else, really), because their hands were touching, and Akram leaned over Carl’s shoulder – so close, why so close? – and his breath was warm on the side of Carl’s face; and if Carl turned his head, he’d almost –
“Fuck off,” Carl said and prayed no one could see his ears turning red.
~~~
Carl stuck to the basement throughout the day. When Rose came back from lunch with Akram, Carl glared balefully enough that Rose left again to get him a sandwich. Carl considered feeling bad about that and decided not to on account of her quoting the article at him throughout the day.
“Not enjoying your hour of fame?” Hardy asked as he got ready to go home. “I hear your little moment in the limelight is going down really well upstairs.”
Carl rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. Rose was bad enough, but yeah, she wouldn’t have kept it to herself, naturally. Why keep quiet if you could also spill the beans to Wilson? He looked over suspiciously. Rose kept her head down. Rapping the cane on his desk, Hardy fucked off and left Carl to stew in the basement, marinating like an unhappy pickle.
“I will leave now,” Akram said lightly, about an hour later. It wasn’t like they had any windows to foster a shared sense of time (and Rose had taken out the batteries from their clock for the Christmas lighting and helpfully forgotten to put them back in), but it seemed well into the evening. Probably it was safe to stick his nose out, now. “Will you come with me?”
For a brief, delightful moment, Carl thought he meant something like, walk me home, or even, join us for dinner; but glancing over at Akram, hands neatly hidden away in his bulky coat pockets, that had been way too hopeful. Akram was classy, and had probably seen Carl fidget more than usual while trying to get that stupid article out of his mind, and correctly deduced Carl wasn’t keen on facing any other jokers.
Carl followed Akram into the elevator and spent some tense thirty seconds trying not to stare at the hair curling at the nape of his neck. Would be fucking nice to come up with a topic of conversation right about now. The doors opened and spat them out into the bullpen.
There was a beat, where Carl thought he could get away scot-free. And then Wilson looked up. She nudged Aaron, who glanced up too, and then turned away to snicker.
“Quick, quick,” Carl muttered and tried to hustle Akram through the doors. Naturally, Bruce was quicker. He stepped in front of Carl, neatly, in the middle of the room. Carl felt exposed like a wobbly teacup on a silver platter.
“Ah, our local hero,” Bruce said and clapped him on the shoulder. “And his trusted… friend? What did they write about Salim?” He half turned to look at a blonde woman, mid-thirties, with wildly curly hair and a loosely buttoned blouse who stood with her crossed arms in front of Bruce’s latest evidence board. Her face twisted, but she came over anyway.
“Watson to Morck’s Sherlock, DI Salim is hiding his true thoughts well behind gorgeous dark eyes. How he deals with his stroppy superior? –“
Akram smiled politely. Then he took a small, unassuming step forward and extended a hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Akram Salim,” he said.
The blonde stopped speaking, and Carl got to witness in real time how Akram’s – charisma? magic? whatever that was – worked. The woman stopped scowling, uncrossed her arms to shake his hand, and then tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Carl scowled.
“Kira Ridley. I’m in IT,” she said. “I’m sorry – it’s just, the article’s a bit funny, you know?”
“I’m sure it is,” Akram offered magnanimously.
“I’ve got a friend who writes for The Gazetteer,” she said. She looked only at Akram. Bruce and Carl were mere props to her play, and Carl felt an itching irritation deep in his bones that Bruce and he had been equally sidelined. “They were very excited to have gotten the interview.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that. It really was Carl’s interview,” Akram said, and pushed him forward with a hand on the small of his back. Carl blinked.
“Delighted to meet you,” Ridley said and deigned to shake his hand, too. “I’m interested in the justice bit. Is it true that you said that you don’t believe in justice, only in competence?”
“Did that make it in there?”
“I thought we did this job to help people,” Ridley said and frowned like she couldn’t believe Carl didn’t go around helping grannies cross the street and handing sweets to children. Probably good he wasn’t doing the latter.
“He’s actually quite compassionate,” Akram said. “He just externalizes it differently.”
Carl scoffed. Akram took a step forward, as if to participate more easily in the conversation. But he rammed his elbow into Carl’s side; and had they been seated, he probably would have kicked Carl under the table. From experience, Carl knew his leather shoes had a mean right heal.
Trying to hide his wince, Carl bared his teeth in what people might have called a smile, but which severely lacked the proper emotive backbone. Since Akram was close, Carl grabbed his elbow and pulled.
“Yeah, that’s right. And now, actually, we gotta go. Cases to solve, people to save. You know the drill.”
He half-frogmarched, half-dragged Akram to the door. Ridley waved after them. Sweeping his eyes across the room, Carl noted officers who had obviously been listening in turning back to work. Everyone was cloaked with an air of I’ve seen absolutely nothing, sir, which Carl was used to. He just assumed that this time, when they left the room, the rumour mill would spring to life, baking enough fucking bread to last them till the summer party. What a bloody nightmare.
~~~
As Carl had suspected, it did not get better over the next week. He spent his days driving out to Balnookie with Akram for witness interviews. There lived about five-thousand people in the little sandstone village: all of them over sixty, all of them deeply invested in their annual bake sale – and all of them faithful subscribers to The Gazetteer.
Of course, Balnookie was less than an hour away from Edinburgh, so it wasn’t like Carl got to escape the madness of the city either way. Other people, so Carl had heard, liked fame – and perhaps, when he was about sixteen and trying to impress girls, he had dreamed of being a famous rock star. As he got older, he realized how dumb people were and got over that quick. Only, people seemed to have not gotten the memo.
“Where’s this Assad fellow?” the fifty-something man behind the counter asked when Carl stopped by to grab their coffee. “He’s usually with you, right?”
“Family problems,” Carl said and tapped his card on the counter to get back to Akram as quickly as possible. Akram, who was perfectly well, and simply waiting in the car. They weren’t married, for fucks sake.
“Poor fella, give him my best,” the man said, shaking his head. “I read your article, sounds like you work very well together.”
“Uhm,” Carl said and dropped three cubes of sugar into his cup, begging them to melt quicker.
“Well, it’s just as my missus said, innit? Opposites attract.”
Carl slapped two plastic lids onto the cups, nodded at the man who winked back and fled the shop. He would need to go looking for a new deli, this one obviously wasn’t safe.
~~~
“You’re even grumpier than they wrote,” the young woman said, hiking up her child on one hip, and keeping an eye out for her other daughter by the swing set.
“Carefully honed skill,” Carl said. “Now, did you notice anything strange about your dad? Before he died?”
“No, he was class,” she said. “But I mean, you work with people. All the time. Don’t you like them?”
“I tolerate their existence. If they’re useful.”
The woman looked at Carl with wide eyes. Akram cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“He’s joking. He just means he has high standards.”
Carl rolled his eyes, but she seemed mollified and turned to speak to Akram about her late fathers allergic reaction – slash – food poisoning – slash murder. Carl had observed this pattern carefully over the last few days.
After his staring at their picture (and swearing to himself to not rip the double page out, no matter how good Akram looked in it), he hadn’t touched the article again. But apparently it had paid off, Moira having sent Akram with him as his babysitter, because the general reception by the general public seemed to land on: Carl was a nutter, but a genius – and Akram was…. his loyal sidekick.
Even when he thought back, Carl couldn’t remember Akram praising himself; or speaking much at all, to be honest. But apparently, he had effortlessly charmed the journalist in pretty much the same manner as he now charmed the whole city. Carl got to witness it firsthand: Akram smiled at people and asked questions; and then something happened, and they all flocked to him like druggies to Georgie. It must be in the fucking eyes. Carl didn’t like it one bit.
When overexcited teenagers asked for picture and Carl didn’t want to snap at them, but found no other mode of response, Akram gently steered them away, claiming Carl appreciated their enthusiasm, but they were in a hurry.
The cafeteria lunch ladies, he consoled with his strange baked-goods family recipe that Rose was so fond of, and the excuse that Carl was just focusing on his job right now, this was a working lunch.
Their colleagues’ biting comments, he handled with serene smiles – unless he felt something was off, then he stepped in with a sharp remark to extract Carl from the situation before he could blow up himself and everyone in the vicinity.
Carl wasn’t sure how he felt about that: Akram’s attention, divided. Himself, managed, like an unruly child out of line at its strict grandparents’ manor. Carl had read that, in the olden times, overenthusiastic parents used to tape forks to the back of dinner chairs, to make their brood sit straight. In their twisted scenario, Akram was both the fork as well as the soothing relief that came after, when the tines weren’t threatening to pierce your skin anymore.
With every glance, every nudge and every passing conversation, Carl felt tension settle deeper into his shoulders. In his neck, there was a permanent twinge. It was fucking annoying to be recognised, and even more, to be spoken to. What did people get off on, drawing him into conversation and hoping he’d entertain them? It was their own bloody fault for expecting the wrong thing – and it was worse that Akram participated in their charade so happily.
Measures needed to be taken.
~~~
But before measures could be taken, Carl got to experience the feeling of a rusty nail sticking into his heel, repeatedly, as they interviewed one of the other judges from the bake sale competition. The witness was not overly interested in talking about that.
“That interview did say you were cute,” their witness said to Akram and smiled invitingly.
The man wore a tastefully blue apron over a beige jumper that seemed to have been painted on him. His auburn curls were a halo around his face and his stubble so carefully groomed even Akram’s moustache looked neglected in comparison. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a spring fashion photoshoot with Vogue or something similar. And he was making eyes at Akram.
“I’m sure it said nothing like it,” Akram corrected mildly. “Though you are very kind.”
“Well, they teased it: they did say something about your eyes. And that it looked like you could kill: both with a glance as well as with one finger.”
“Hyperbole, I assure you.”
“And that you must be patient, to deal with Morck all the time.”
The man flicked a glance at Carl. Carl stuck his hands into his pockets, feeling the the ridges of his fingernails in his palm. The kitchen smelled like vanilla. It was slightly incongruent to the white, hot anger Carl felt bubbling in him. He imagined squashing the profiterole the man had lined up in front of him, after filling them carefully. The cream would splash around the kitchen. It would feel sticky on Carl’s fingers, but so very fucking satisfying. Carl imagined the feeling of the squish. The dull sound of the wet cream dropping. Well, surely, Akram wouldn’t approve.
“I am very patient,” Akram said. “Did the article mention I have two daughters?”
“A single father?” the man glanced at Akram’s hand on the porcelain mug. “Very committed. I like a man who’s good with kids.”
“Carl has a son,” Akram said and turned to Carl. His eyes widened, but despite all his time studying Akram, this particular expression remained indecipherable for Carl.
“The victim also had children,” Carl said darkly, “Let’s try to get them some resolution, shall we?”
~~~
“I hope you’re fucking happy,” Carl said and threw the magazine onto Moira’s desk.
“Mhm,” Moira said and didn’t look up. She seemed to be writing intently, but when Carl edged closer, he saw she was filling out the crossword.
“What kind of fucking PR stunt is this? I can’t even do my job properly anymore.”
“You barely do your job properly. I’m missing paperwork from your last four cases. For another three, at least, sloppy is too kind a description.”
Carl gritted his teeth and slouched into the black leather chair. It creaked. The faint smell of polish hung in the air. Did Moira pull the curtains to do her fucking nails?
“Three witnesses today, all of them mentioned the article. I lost a good hour over that. Akram, too. That must be, what, a hundred quid lost in working hours?”
“You didn’t care about department resources when you booked that flight to Denmark…”
“For fucks sake. It was a triple homicide!”
“And they solved it without you just fine,” Moira said and finally clicked the pen shut. She laced her fingers on the desk and glared at Carl. “Look, you fucked up those press conferences. I gave DI Salim pointers to practice with you – you refused them.”
Carl remembered when Akram had approached him with PR departement approved talking points. Why Moira had believed that would have worked? No fucking clue. It had stung somewhat, that Akram had enabled her; that certainly hadn’t improved Carl’s mood during the journalists’ questions.
“The spread is a huge success,” Moira said conciliatorily. “Some papers picked it up. They even retold some of your old cases. I’m expecting we can ask for more funding during the next budget investigation.”
“And will my department see any of that budged?”
Moira unclenched her claws and smiled broadly.
“Let’s see how long you can keep up the good publicity, shall we?”
~~~
Carl found Akram by the snack machine, chatting with that Ridley woman. His scowl deepened. When Akram saw him, he smiled politely at the blonde. She said something that made Akram get out his phone and lean closer while he typed something in. They looked awfully cozy. Carl felt close to vomiting or crawling under a heap of leaves and decomposing slowly.
Then Akram ambled over, and Carl took him outside. On days like this, he regretted to have stopped smoking when Jasper had come to live with him. His hands were shaking.
“Are you okay?” Akram asked.
Carl leaned against the railing and took a deep breath. In the drizzle, he could smell the cheap sports shampoo Akram used, and the car fumes hovering over the city. Their arms touched where Akram leaned next to him. Carl felt the point of contact and wanted to cling to it to a buoy. Didn’t sharks circle buoys? Or was it surfboards? Much more likely to get hit by a boat while swimming, though. Carl swayed forward, unable to look away from the little coppery ring around Akram’s iris. One lash was slightly crooked.
Behind them, the precinct door swung open. Akram cleared his throat lightly and stepped away. Heart still in his throat, Carl licked his lips. He could feel Akram staring at at him. Faintly, he hoped he hadn’t looked too stupid, too obvious, with his desire written all over his fucking face.
Out of the door ambled Wilson, that idiot Wilson always hung out with, and more young people Carl couldn’t name.
“My friend works for that photographer The Gazetteer used,” one said and lit a cigarette. The smoke lazily curled over. “He said the article was really toned down.”
Carl glanced at Akram. But Akram didn’t say anything, just looked back with a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they said Morck was much more of a bastard. I mean, he doesn’t sound too bad in the interview – eccentric, but not deranged. I guess they really haven’t met him at the station, huh?”
“Rose says he’s not so bad,” Wilson offered but didn’t say anything else.
“Yeah? Apparently, Morck told the interviewer that he didn’t believe in humanity as a concept. Can’t decide if it’s pretentious or fucking hilarious.”
“Surely that was a joke.”
Carl ran a hand through his hair to hide his face and then dragged Akram down the stairs. Perfect time for a coffee. No need to relieve this fucking humiliation.
“It was a joke,” Carl muttered when Akram made him stop to get falafel instead (‘you can’t live off of coffee and sandwiches, Carl’).
Akram blinked and clasped his shoulder briefly. Then he handed him his pita bread. It smelled deliciously like garlic. Carl heard his stomach rumble.
~~~
Since young and old alike were charmed by Akram, Dept. Q. started to receive fan mail: the old geezers from the bake sale started to send over goodie bags. Carl insisted they’d be sent up to the tox lab before anyone got to snack on them, and both Rose and Akram glared at his suggestion. When they got their snacks back, they spent the afternoon hunched side by side at Roses desk, pretending to work but happily munching on éclairs and three-chocolate-chip cookies, instead.
“And then there’s the letters,” Hardy said and dropped a stack onto Akram’s desk. Akram simply moved them to the side.
“Aw, don’t be like that,” Hardy complained. “But fear not, there’s emails too: This one, for example, was sent from some called Elise, apparently born in 1997 –“
“That’s a bit young for you, innit?” Rose cut in and nudged Akram.
“ – and she writes to tell Akram that he’s got a criminally beautiful mind.”
“That reads a bit serial killer.”
“This other one just says she’d love to meet your daughters…”
“Also, creepy.”
“Oho. One wants to meet up to get to know you and Carl better. Fancy a threesome?”
This made Akram look up. Hardy shook his head.
“Yeah, sorry mate. That’s the least crass of the crass ones.”
Akram pulled up his shoulder in a one-sided shrug. He didn’t seem thrilled. Carl probably also wouldn’t have been thrilled if someone propositioned him and his boss, and then their colleagues got to read it out loud.
“Cut it out,” he told Hardy tiredly. Scanning Carl’s face, Hardy closed the browser and thunked his cane at Rose to get him an éclair, too.
Rose had also unearthed multiple blogs which had dedicated entries to discussing the interview in detail. She handed Carl her iPad to scroll. Carl scowled at the dedication people had put into this bullshit. As he scrolled on, he scowled more: because naturally, not all comments were positive. And naturally, both the press conference footage as well as the video of Carl beating up Finch’s goon had resurfaced, too. People had layered offensive, bold letters over it – police brutality was the kindest comment.
Carl swallowed. Then he put the iPad down. Akram caught his gaze across the room and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Then he gently nudged the cookie tin in Carl’s direction.
~~~
The new deli Carl had found near the precinct wasn’t better. Well, the coffee was – just not the service. A man about five years younger than Akram, tall and with warm, brown skin stood behind the counter and smiled. He ignored Carl after three sentences and started to converse with Akram in French. Arabic, Carl could have taken, but this was too much.
“I’ll wait outside,” he muttered and gulped down a sip of burning hot coffee. Akram and the other man looked at him sceptically. While Akram seemed at least only confused and perhaps slightly frustrated at Carl’s social ineptness, (which Carl could understand and found better than Akram’s usual annoyance), the other man’s eyes cut between Akram and Carl and seemed to ask, and this is the man you willingly spend time with?
Carl remembered that Akram did not, in fact, willingly spend time with him. They were colleagues. Akram got paid for this shit. A bitter, coffee-unrelated taste cloyed Carl’s mouth, and he fled outside to wait in the rain. Next to him sat a bedraggled dog, fur clumping over his eyes.
~~~
Two days later, Mona from reception came down to hand Akram flowers. Carl glared at her.
“They’re not from me,” she said in response and took a step back. “A handsome young fella dropped them off. I’m just delivering them.” Akram got up to thank her and free her arms from the mass of plants. Carl could smell the roses. And the bouquet was huge, who dropped that much money on flowers?
“There’s a card,” Mona told Akram with a wink before she went up again.
Trying not to look and yet unable to look away, Carl stared as Akram hugged the bouquet to his chest and reached for the little paper card. Even from the distance, it looked like the paper was thick and classy. Akram smiled as he read it.
“What does it say?”
“It’s private, Carl,” Akram said and looked up. Then he sneezed.
“Oh my God, are you getting sick?” Rose asked and moved away.
“You don’t even like flowers,” Carl told Akram. “Do you? Also, who spends that much on flowers?”
“This is why you’re divorced,” Rose told Carl.
“I’m allergic,” Akram said and sneezed again.
Rose stepped closer to relieve him of the horrible plants and carried them upstairs. She seemed more upset about the loss of the pop of colour in the basement than Akram. Carl didn’t say anything, because nothing good could have come of it: of this sickly, twisting feeling. Akram looked like he regretted the flowers being taken away, and Carl did not like that quiet look at all – but having them here, for days, potentially, and being reminded that Akram was quite attractive, and attentive, and apparently all around appealing to more people than just one cantankerous detective wasn’t great for Carl’s blood pressure.
~~~
The next person who had read the article and needed to communicate this to Carl as soon as she spotted him worked at the counter behind the hotel reception. It was the woman from the blackmail photo.
Carl got it out of her that she’d gotten the pictures from the CCTV recently. She had helped the victim inside the hotel in the rain, only he’d insisted on carrying her umbrella like a gentleman. They’d chatted altogether for only about five minutes. When the hotel changed the security system, she had spotted the pictures and had hoped to make some quick money to get her dog surgery and her car fixed.
Akram stood next to Carl, scribbling his notes attentively. This left Carl to deal with the dog – slash – attempted blackmail disaster.
“So, you’re saying you blackmailed his wife, but you didn’t kill him?”
“No!”
“Well, and do you have an alibi for the bake sale?”
“I was volunteering at the shelter,” she cried. “I swear, I would never kill anyone!”
“Only a light spot of blackmail, huh?”
Her hiccupping sobbing intensified. It sounded pitiful even to Carl. Akram looked at him, shaking his head. Carl reached across the counter and clasped the woman’s shoulder.
“It’s fine.”
“Are you gonna report me for blackmail?” she asked. “I don’t have money. I can’t go to prison, what would happen to Rex?”
She took her hands off her eyes. Her mascara had – melted? – from her tears. Her eyes seemed very blue from the smeared kohl, and something disgusting like pity filled Carl’s stomach. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even like dogs that much.
“Well. Nothing came of it. Maybe we can make an exception.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she started sobbing again. Carl glanced at Akram. Akram nudged his shoulder lightly, and Carl felt some warmth spread through him. And then he felt annoyed. What the fuck had he become.
Akram rooted around in his pockets, then he found a handkerchief. An honest-to-God, actual fabric handkerchief. He handed it over, and the woman tried to clean herself up.
“Mina made it in school,” Akram said. It sounded apologetic even to Carl. “My initials are stitched in the corner.”
“What kind of school do you daughters go to?” Carl asked, unable to think of Akram at home. Akram grinned, but before he could answer, the woman had calmed herself down and pushed the now used fabric back over the counter.
“No, keep it,” Akram said mildly.
“You guys are so much sweeter than even the interview suggested,” she said. “I don’t even know how I can make this up to you. Dinner?”
If Carl was rude now, she’d be jarred. More importantly, she’d turn to Akram for some more comfort. After he’d already sacrificed his daughter’s handmade gift, who knew what else he’d hand over next? His number? Carl needed to stop this.
“It’s fine, love,” he said and grasped her hand. It was still wet, hopefully from the tears, not the snot. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Huh?”
“Blackmail. When an opportunity presents itself…”
She extracted her hand and frowned at him.
“Well, nice to meet you, but we gotta go now,” Carl said and waved cheerily. He crowded Akram out of the hotel’s bougie front entrance, complete with a fabulous doorman in a pompous suit, and sleek black cars waiting at the curb.
Outside, Akram inhaled deeply. The doorman watched them sceptically. Carl ignored everything and tried to turn his face into the sun.
“Was that really necessary?” Akram asked.
Carl thought about the countless people who’d tried to take Akram’s attention off him over the last couple of weeks, and potentially even to steal him away. He felt quite pleased with himself.
~~~
Not everyone was fended off that easily. They had finally identified the person who’d admitted to mixing up the almond scones with the plain ones. The almond scones of death. Well, who wanted to eat something like that anyway. Now they were supposed to be driving to Balnookie to make sure it really had been only an accident. But Carl couldn’t find Akram.
He'd vanished shortly before lunch break. He hadn’t been with Hardy, who was looking into some bullshit for Moira (Carl hadn’t cared, so he hadn’t asked). He hadn’t been to lunch with Rose, who sat upstairs, eating pasta salad from a Tupperware and gossiping with Wilson. He wasn’t at the deli Carl had found, and he also wasn’t in Moira’s office, comparing kid pics or plotting to tame Carl or whatever the fuck those two talked about when Carl wasn’t around.
Carl finally found him on the second floor. It housed forensics, comp sci and IT. An uneasy feeling spread through Carl’s limbs. That horrible Ridley woman Bruce was on speaking terms with – what kind of character statement was that, anyway – had worked in IT, hadn’t she?
Carl’s hunch was right: Akram and Ridley sat together in the break room, looking at some video on Ridley’s phone which she had propped up against an orange aluminium bottle. Akram was methodically peeling a mandarin; Ridley had snacked through what looked like an entire roll of gingernuts. Their shoulders were touching, and from behind the glass wall, Carl could hear Akram chuckle. The deep, throaty one that Carl knew wasn’t specially for him, but which his heart, clenching painfully, claimed very insistently it should be.
Carl sat himself up against the door frame, legs crossed over his ankles and arms crossed too. Then he rapped his knuckled on the wall. The glass vibrated beneath the force.
“Can I interrupt you fucking lovebirds?” Carl snapped as Akram turned around and got up from his chair. He didn’t look too disturbed. Ridley’s eyes widened though, and red, hectic heat stains spread on her neck. Carl could see it, cause her neckline was suspiciously deep for a workplace.
“We were just – “ Ridley started and looked up to Akram for help.
“Having lunch,” Akram supplied helpfully.
“Well, we wanted to leave half an hour ago,” Carl barked. “So if you could make the time?”
Akram frowned and checked the time on his phone.
“We were going to leave in ten minutes,” he said. “I even set an alarm.”
“Right. But now we’re all here, so how about we just get on with it anyway?”
Akram looked at Carl, slowly and deliberately, standing in the doorway, one long line of gangly limbs and irritation. Then he sighed.
“We’ll catch up next week,” he told Ridley with a smile and grabbed the last slices of his fruit. As he brushed past Carl, perhaps closer than strictly necessary even for the narrow hallway, Carl caught a whiff of mandarin. He remembered the taste from sucking it off his own fingers as a child, and unbidden, he imagined sucking it off of Akram’s. He swallowed, then he trailed after Akram.
In the elevator, the mandarin smell seemed to intensify. Akram’s eyes were very dark.
“Why are you being like this?”
Akram indicated Carl and his whole, annoying being with one swoop of his hand.
“Like what?”
Carl tried to project his usual bitchiness, rather than what he’d really felt – since he wasn’t to keen to name that either. Perhaps he should have stuck with a superiors prerogative of complaining about his employee’s competence – surely vanishing from Carl’s line of sight (to have lunch with pretty computer folk) could be put down as, say, hindering the investigation…
Akram rolled his eyes and offered Carl a slice of mandarin. Their fingers brushed. Carl watched Akram watch him eat it, and suddenly felt very hot, and like this stupid elevator was taking way longer than normal.
“Are you jealous?” Akram asked finally.
Carl almost choked.
“I’m irritated. There’s a difference.”
“There is,” Akram agreed. “I’m not sure you understand it.”
The elevator opened before Carl could come up with a clever comeback. Carl wanted to bash his head against the doors. And now, to spend an hour locked into the car with this man? Fucking joy!
~~~
Later that evening, after Carl had made another witness cry while explaining how it was all just an accident (promise!), Carl went to the shops to get some fruit. He arranged it artistically in a bowl on the kitchen table. Jasper stuck his head through the door to ask if Carl was okay? Was he eating citrus cause he was sick? Carl threw a pillow after him.
Carl slept very badly the next couple of days, because the smell of mandarin, and Akram’s eyes haunted him, and his thighs straddling Carl when Akram had stopped him from being squashed by the weights. Carl’s body had decided it didn’t mind a bit of squashing, and kept him awake, and tense, and supplied with an unending stream of fantasies that made Carl blush when he greeted Akram in the mornings.
~~~
And then life went on. The hype around Carl’s interview died down, because shit happened, and more interesting people got interviewed, and fashion, or whatever. People rarely talked to Carl about it anymore – either the recognition phase was over, or those who’d wanted to say something had gotten it out of their system. And Carl and Akram were still Carl-and-Akram, with no one sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
Rose suggested two more cases, which Dept. Q, solved with finesse. Then she volunteered a third one. Their suspect had been accused of murdering at least two people – his phone had pinged in the area, but no one had found DNA on the victims. Now, he’d been tentatively identified by an eyewitness – but they’d only had the sketch and now an AI reconstruction to compare with his ID. The suspect claimed he’d just been walking his dogs. Naturally, this meant nightly stakeouts.
So perhaps it was that the mundanity of normal life had lulled Carl into a false sense of security, and it really was nothing out of the ordinary. They were picking up snacks for a stakeout. A man approached Akram in the deli, and it hit Carl.
Carl thought he’d gotten over the irritation, the anger, (and perhaps, yes, also the jealousy, though unrelated). But as the man looked at Carl with wide, hopeful eyes to ask for an autograph, of all fucking things!, Carl could see the hope turn first to derision, and then ressentiment – until Akram stepped in, shaking the man’s hand, smiling, and generally smoothing Carl’s personality over until its edges were malleable like wax. Something in Carl snapped and filled him with poisonous rage.
Carl thrust his liquorice at Akram and left the shop. Both to stop witnessing that conversation, and to escape the temptation to buy cigarettes, to stop the shaking in his hands.
Akram joined him five minutes later, clapping the stranger on the back as he walked in the opposite direction. Carl scoffed and started walking to their car, lengthening his strides to make it harder for Akram to keep up. Naturally, this only worked because Akram let him, which pissed Carl off even more.
Folding himself behind the steering wheel, Carl turned down the gloom of the car’s interior lights and then fixed his eyes steadily onto the suspects door. As Akram reached for the radio, Carl batted his hand away. Carl ripped open his snacks. The plastic crinkled loudly in the car, and the smell of liquorice mingled with the fake pine tree.
“I don’t need you to save me,” Carl said finally, with the black bits sticking his back teeth together. “I can handle it.”
“I know.”
Carl looked over, but Akram didn’t, so Carl only saw his profile. The shadow of the cheekbone, and curling under the moustache. Carl turned back to look out the window.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Saving you?”
“Stepping in.”
Akram paused for a beat, then he reached over the middle console. Carl handed him the bag. Akram took a piece.
“Wouldn’t you say it makes your life easier?”
Grumbling, Carl snatched the sweets back.
“Like that barista who doesn’t spit in your coffee anymore?” Akram asked serenely. “Bruce actually being useful?”
“She never spit in my coffee,” Carl insisted. Akram only hummed. “And I don’t like you managing me,” Carl added.
“If you were nicer, I wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s fucking rich.”
That this man, who’d shot Lyle in the face, and broken someone’s leg without a twitch in his expression (or so Rose had told it, shuddering), had the fucking gall to lecture Carl on niceties. Just because people were charmed by him, didn’t mean he was a nice person. Who bargained with people when they were having panic attacks?
“I’m not managing you,” Akram interrupted Carl’s thought spiral. “I’m trying to manage how people perceive you.”
“Well – stop that,” Carl barked. “I don’t need you to!”
A car drove past and it’s head lights spilled into the interior. Carl turned his face away, while the car jolted past on the cobblestones. Akram waited till it was gone.
“Do you like to be perceived as an arsehole?”
Carl scoffed. “I worked hard on this image, you know.”
“I don’t see you that way.”
He reached for the bag again. Carl stilled the movement half-way, and their hands collided.
“And how do you see me?” Carl asked, quietly, not daring to look over.
Akram took back his hand, just a couple of inches. Carl’s stomach dropped. Then, with the bag hovering mid-air over Carl’s lap, Akram suddenly twisted in his seat.
“I don’t believe you,” he said and grabbed Carl’s jaw in one hand. And proceeded to kiss him fiercely.
The moustache was something to become accustomed to, and the licorice perhaps not the sexiest taste – but Akram was warm, and greedy, and everything Carl’s coveting mind had projected into it, only different.
“Does that clear things up?” Akram asked when he finally let go of Carl’s jaw, only to rest his hand over his painfully thumping heart. Breathing heavily, Carl flicked his eyes between Akram’s. A brief sliver of light flickered, and he could see the coppery rings. Slowly, Carl reached up to put his hand over the one on his chest. Under Carl’s thumb, Akram’s knuckles seemed cold, but so soft, and Carl realized he wanted to hold his hand. Carl was very warm.
“Yup,” Carl said when his brain finally caught up with reality, and the fact Akram had asked a question. Sadly, it had also caught up with the fact that the sliver of light had come from the door opening, and now the suspect was strolling along the darkened road.
“Come home with me later? For some coffee?” Carl suggested as he reluctantly slid out of the car. “You can show me how nice you can really be.”
Akram lightly closed the door. Then he looked at Carl over the roof of the Golf. Without the light, his eyes seemed black.
“I didn’t think you liked nice.”
Carl stumbled, and Akram caught his elbow, and then they pursued their dog walking strangler into the badly lit park. Carl felt the adrenaline, and something else, pesky and promising at once, running through his veins.