Hide and Seek

He remained silent till they'd reached the café and settled themselves into a corner booth with a good view of the front and side entrances to the garage. A surly waitress with had taken their orders, and the pair of them were sipping surprisingly good cappuccinos when John finally spoke.

"Okay Megan, what's the deal?"

She carefully avoided looking at him. "What's your interest in this?"

He shook his head, as if reading her mind. "Not what you're thinking." He smiled lopsidedly. "I know when I'm out of my league."

She blushed. "I'm sorry, John."

He waved away her apology. "No need to say anything."

"Then why...?"

He looked away at that. "G-d knows I'm not the most sensitive bloke around. I drink too much, I've woken up next to a few strangers in my time, and I'm an obnoxious git a large part of the time."

"But I have got eyes, and I've worked with you for a long time now. No-one's that self-contained without a bloody good reason. You're hiding something."

She was trembling. "So?"

"So I thought you could use a shoulder to cry on. A sort of father confessor, if you like. Just talk to me, Meg."

For once she didn't protest about her nickname. The temptation to let down some of her defences was almost overwhelming. Yet her customary obliqueness was a hard act to shed.

He seemed to sense this. "I don't want to know everything. But it must be pretty lonely being you. I can have a few pints with my mates when things get too bad. How do you let things go?"

He'd hit the nail on the head with painful accuracy. Her burden of secrets was eating away at her spirit, and she was desperate to say something, to someone. To her intense shame, several large tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Here, take this." She looked over to see John holding out a large crumpled white handkerchief. "It isn't ironed, but it is clean."

Kincaid, ignore this tea and sympathy, and pull yourself together, said her rational mind.

She took the proffered handkerchief and blew her nose.

"Where do I start?" she said.

John grinned. "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start," he sang.

Megan groaned, but the levity had helped. "Stick to the policing, John." She went on more seriously. "I've never been one to be emotional. I guess I threw everything into the job."

She continued slowly, weighing every word before she spoke. "Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. I love the feeling I get when things go well, and it's wonderful when we really make a difference." She chuckled hoarsely. "And it's pretty satisfying to see a bastard locked up."

She paused.

John merely sat sipping his cappuccino. He was waiting.

"I suppose it's not enough anymore."

She looked questioningly at John, but he didn't say anything. She went on as if in a dream. "I've got no family, I haven't many friends outside the job. People tell me their problems, but there's no-one for me to talk to for myself."

John moved towards her. "We'd help you, if you'd let us. You never seem to need anyone. You're always so calm and composed, I think you put people off."

Megan sniffled. "It's all illusion, I assure you. I've got this reputation as this cool, competent individual." Her face went blank. "Do you know what the uniforms call me?"

Her listener shook his head.

"The ice maiden. That's my nickname. Pretty apt, eh?"

There was nothing John could do but nod. Anything else would have been a lie, and Megan didn't deserve that.

She struggled for composure. "The ice maiden. Know-it-all, feel-nothing Sergeant Kincaid. People I've helped on the job think I'm wonderful, but the folks I'm meant to rely on for support think I'm a heartless bastard."

She was overstating her case, but not by much. The truth was, she tended to overawe the people. Not intentionally, perhaps, but the results were the same. She was different, and people noticed.

"I just can't seem to get out of my shell. It wasn't a problem before; I've always been good at making a virtue out of necessity." She didn't elaborate. "But now..." she trailed off miserably, stirring her coffee far more vigorously than was necessary.

She dropped her spoon with a splash.

Megan retrieved the sodden utensil with a grimace. "After that little performance, I suppose there's not a great deal of point denying things, is there?"

John smiled wryly. "No. I mean, it would be nice if you leapt across the table and proclaimed undying love for me instead, but I don't think that's going to happen."

"Oh". She was at a loss for words. "How did you know?" She blushed again.

"I am a detective, Kincaid. Call it surmise based on a solid hunch, if you like."

"I see."

"I don't think you do." John's mouth twitched slightly at the corners. "I've seen the way you look at him when you think no-one's paying attention." He grinned. "But I don't think you've seen the way the boss looks at you."

"WHAT!"

"He's smitten, Megan. Head over heels."

"John..." But her protest was feeble.

"Megan Kincaid, Chris Scott is in love with you. The wonder is that you haven't noticed!" He stopped as if struck by a sudden idea, then went on more carefully. "Or maybe you were too afraid to look."

A look of almost indescribable anguish rippled across her features, and was gone in a flash. It was so quick as to be almost imperceptible, except for a certain haunted look that shadowed her deep blue eyes.

Megan scarcely recognised her own voice. "What makes you think that?" she asked huskily.

John looked narrowly at her. "I don't know."

"So there's something you haven't guessed about me!"

He ignored her interruption. "But something's changed you. Made you afraid to trust. Afraid to live."

A fragment of an old song came to mind. "Once I was happily content to be. As I was. Where I was. Close to the people who were close to me. Here in the home I love."*

He read her thoughts with uncanny accuracy. "You're not going to tell me what it was, are you?"

"Life's a gamble. And we're all a bit afraid. But you have to give it a chance. You might even find it's worth the risk."

His words, however cliched, hit home. Megan stared at the tablecloth, counting the dirty red and white checks until her world stopped spinning. When she at last felt composed enough to look up, she watched John swallow the last dregs of his coffee with a grimace. He met her gaze.

"Thank you," she mouthed. It was all she could say, but she thought he understood.

He smiled easily in response, then deliberately crossed his eyes and poked out his tongue.

Clearly, the discussion was over.

The two sergeants sat in companionable silence, watching the garage opposite. Eventually, Megan gestured to the waitress, intending to ask for another drink. However, although the woman took her order willingly enough, she seemed reluctant to leave.

"Is there are problem?" Megan asked, senses alert to a potential witness.

It's something in the way they act. Desperate to talk, yet cagey at the same time. She winced inwardly. Like me. Except I haven't the excuse.

"I dunno. Depends."

John had also noticed the waitress' attitude, and had leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. His interviewing pose.

"Are you lot coppers?"

Megan was cautious. "If we are, what of it?"

Instead of answering, the woman pulled out a chair and plonked herself down at the table with a sigh of relief.

"Thought so. I can always tell." She snorted loudly. "There's not a hell of a lot to do in this place 'cept watch the folk as come by." A smothered laugh. "The stories I could tell!"

She replied carefully. "Really? Anything interesting?"

"Yeah. And most of 'em to do with that garage across the way." She looked at the detectives shrewdly. "I suspect that's what you're looking at. Not much else round 'ere."

John nodded. "You might well be right."

She shifted in her seat. "Well, I'm always 'appy to 'elp the police. She paused. "But it'll cost you, mind. Nuffin' for nuffin' in this world."

John pulled out a five-pound note and laid it on the table.

"Wot? A measly fiver?"

Megan laid a twenty-pound note next to the five. The waitress' eyes gleamed covetously, and she reached for the cash. Seeing her expression, Megan slammed her right hand over the notes.

"No information, no money."

"Cow." But the slur was good-natured.

"Talk, or we leave."

"There's always blokes comin' and goin'. It's not always the same ones, mind, but there's a few I see quite often. Maybe three."

They waited.

"There's this big ugly brute. Spittin' image o' a walking gorilla. He's never around for long."

"There's also this flash geezer. Pulls up in this big new motor, wearing some expensive suit. Bloody awful taste in ties, though. Whenever he shows, people seem to get all worked up. As if he's important, or somefing." The waitress thought for a moment. "And I think he looks a bit like that Chelsea player, wot's he called? Joe...Moe...Flo!* That's it. Seemed sorter Scandinavian."

The description had been added almost as afterthought, but it was a crucial piece of information. The waitress had just provided the first solid link between Anders Linden and criminal activity.

"There's one more, I think. He always comes over here, has a cuppa and a chat. Nice guy. Cute accent, too." She smiled. "That one could charm the birds from the trees, with all that blarney."

John blinked. "So he's Irish, then?"

The witness looked affronted. "Ain't that what I just said? I think he said he was from the North, poor sod."

The waitress made to rise. "Is that all then? 'Cause I've got to get back to work. There are people waiting, and I'd better go." She made a sweeping gesture, as if to encompass a room full of impatient customers. In actual fact, there was only one other person in the café, an old man huddled into the corner, but the detectives were quite willing to allow her grand exit, since she'd been so helpful.

Megan acquiesced, and the woman grabbed the money from the table and fled back to the counter.

Her partner seemed just about to say something, when a car pulling up in front of the garage caught his eye. He and Megan watched as a most unattractive specimen got out and lumbered inside as the vehicle roared away.

John grinned. "Well I never. If it isn't Bugs Maloney! Shall we pay him a visit, then?"

Megan was about to move, when she caught sight of a furtive-looking pedestrian. He was scanning the area around the garage nervously, apparently unwilling to be seen.

As if trying to maintain his anonymity, the man scurried into the garage via a side entrance. But not before both Megan and John had seen his face.

It was DC Mick Shanahan.