Title: Extenuating Circumstances Part 1
Fandom: Primeval
Rating: 15
Summary: Lorraine finds even she cannot force herself to be rational when someone she loves is missing. Lorraine/Blade

A/N: You should know that this was meant to be ~3,000 words of angst followed by fluff. So not. (Well, angst followed by fluff, yes, but ~3,000 words? NO.) Many thanks to fififolle, for beta-reading, cheerleading and all-round awesomeness, and to lukadreaming for checking my characterisation of her OCs, most particularly Claire and Lizzie.

Due to the ridiculous and appalling length of this fic, I am obliged to split it into two posts. Next part linked at the bottom.

   The phone call ruined Lorraine’s day.

            It wasn’t that it arrived at a particularly awkward time; she’d just got out of the shower and put on clean clothes for work, and had in fact been about to leave her flat. It wasn’t that she’d been in a wonderful mood beforehand; she’d been a little worried about her boyfriend Blade, who was off doing something so top-secret it had gone past even Lester’s security clearance, but not exactly unhappy.

            It was just the last phone call she wanted to receive, ever. Well, not quite the last, but close to.

            She picked up the phone and said, “Hello, who’s calling please?”

            An unfamiliar, and rather uncomfortable man’s voice answered. “Major Preston. Am I speaking to Lorraine?”

            Alarm bells rang in Lorraine’s mind, and she leaned against the kitchen counter, hand creeping automatically to her mouth. He sounded a little uncertain when he said her name, almost as if he wasn’t totally sure it was the right one. “Yes. I am Lorraine Wickes.”

            “Corporal Finn gave me your name and phone number. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Corporal Richards is missing in action.”

            Lorraine slid down the counter to sit on the floor, ashen. “Oh my God.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s hardly your fault,” Lorraine said automatically. “I’ve never shot the messenger before.”

            “Glad to hear it, ma’am.”

            “Thank you for telling me.” She swallowed. “Please keep me informed, if it’s possible.”

            “Of course, ma’am. Try not to panic. Richards isn’t alone, he’s got Owen and that crazy fucker Ly- I beg your pardon, ma’am.”

            Lorraine choked with laughter. “Don’t worry. ‘Crazy fucker’ describes Lieutenant Lyle exactly. Thank you, Major, it’s appreciated.”

            “You’re welcome.”

            “Goodbye.”

            Lorraine ended the call, and sat on the floor, staring blankly across at the wall for a moment. “Blade. Niall,” she whispered, and suddenly understood everyone who had ever lit a candle in their front window to guide someone they loved home.

            Lorraine only let herself shake on the floor for a short time. After a while, she took a deep breath, collected herself, and got up, reminding herself that she’d always known that something like this happening to Blade was a distinct possibility. She’d known what she was getting into when she started. She should have expected danger and top-secret brushes with- she shied away from the word –death, even if daily life at the ARC wasn’t a walk in the park.

            Mechanically, Lorraine locked herself out and went downstairs, brushing past Mikey from the flat below without even saying ‘Good morning’ and sliding into her car, parked under a lamp-post outside. She drove to the ARC by the same route she always did, sitting patiently through a small traffic jam and presenting her ID to the automatic barrier blocking the ARC’s car park; the barrier lifted, and she drove on until she reached the gates, manned today by a very bored Carter. She waved and he let her through, and she drove down into the underground car park and quickly found a space. She left the car there, and walked up into the ARC itself, up to her office next to Lester’s, overlooking the drum.

            At that time of morning, the ARC was surprisingly quiet, the buzz of the place just waking. A few of the Physics department were in, the second field scientific team –Lorraine counted Dr. Tegan, nose buried in fragrant tea, Anna Cheong frowning at a computer screen, and Ciarán O’Murphy throwing biros at a picture of a dimetrodon; by the number of black ink dots sprinkling the paper, he’d been at it some time- were all present and correct, and the original team, Abby, Jenny, Connor and Professor Cutter were probably asleep at home after the latest hair-raising adventure. The soldiers were around, and Lorraine took note of Norman’s presence up a ladder and halfway down a ventilation duct, wondering which of the ARC’s inhabitants had been responsible for it. She bypassed Ranjit Khan, who was swinging round and round in a computer chair and moodily watching the anomaly detector, and Caroline Steel, who was still very awkward around the ARC and looked horribly crushed when Lorraine didn’t notice her ‘Hello’.

            Lorraine sat down in her office and dropped her bag on the floor beside her, turning on the computer and plunging relentlessly into the day’s work.

It had started off a bad day and it only got worse. Norman, having finished with the ventilation duct, had brought a complaint against one of the soldiers, who had widened mischievous blue eyes at Lorraine and protested his innocence; Lorraine had been about to lose her temper when Sergeant Fraser had rescued her by marching in, taking the medic by the ear and promising to deal appropriately with him, dragging the lad out for a severe ear-bashing on the subject of not vandalising his surroundings. That had helped, except that Norman had stayed to launch a litany of other small problems, and while Lorraine knew and accepted that dealing with this was part of her job, she found it tiresome and irritating, and couldn’t cope with so many references to archangels at that time in the morning anyway.

            Norman having been removed, Lorraine was obliged to cope with Ranjit Khan sitting on her desk and flirting until she poked him with a pencil and pointed out that he wouldn’t dare pop in to annoy her were Blade in the country, and in any case she wasn’t remotely interested, and no, they wouldn’t be great together because, Mr. Khan, you irritate me too much, and if you don’t stop bothering me I shall file a complaint for sexual harassment. That shifted him, and it had only been five minutes, but Lorraine was left not only cross and behind on her work but missing Blade a lot, and wishing he’d drop in to talk to her. For a while, she considered taking half an hour out and going down to the shooting range, but then Caroline Steel came in to give her the personnel files for two new employees, and there was a meeting, and Lorraine simply didn’t have time.

            The meeting was awful. Health and Safety had never been so dull. Lester, presiding, was in an even worse mood than usual and had a good go at skewering the head of the Physics Department to the wall with sarcasm, moving onto Dr. Butterworth as better prey when the physicist just smiled beatifically at him. Lester was incredibly irritable, and Lorraine realised that Major Preston must have rung him as well to let him know that Lyle had vanished; she felt a pang of sympathy, which quickly vanished as Lester turned on her for being what he said was late to work. Lorraine was just touchy enough to point out in her calmest voice that she had in fact been in exactly on time, traffic jams notwithstanding, and that Lester might like to consider the amount of unpaid overtime Lorraine had been doing.

            Once she’d escaped the meeting, an urgent problem was brought to her attention; apparently half of Human Resources had been laid low by a nasty gastrointestinal bug which was spreading like wildfire through the biochemists and Accounting; Lorraine only prayed that it never got as far as the field research teams, or they were all in the soup- if both teams were knocked for six there would be no-one to attend anomalies. Wrestling with this, and eventually simply informing the soldiers’ medics and leaving it at that, Lorraine found herself smoothing over a serious quarrel and soothing Caroline Steel, who had just been socked with another accusation along the lines of just being there to spy. Lorraine sent Caroline to her office for a calming cup of tea, breathed fire and brimstone on the guilty employees, dispersed the small crowd of observers and went back to her office to persuade Caroline not to be so jumpy, whereupon she found Ciarán O’Murphy patiently waiting with four priority reports, only two of which were by Connor Temple (and which Lorraine sincerely hoped had been proofread by somebody else.)

            Then Lester stuck his head round the door and demanded four personnel files, and she thought she had time to finish sorting out Caroline and bang her head quietly against the desk in protest at such a lousy day, except that the moment Caroline left Lester came back in, and proceeded to make a speech about jobs being done properly, prompt fulfilment of orders and not paying Lorraine to gabble with her co-workers.

            For a brief moment Lorraine just stared at him, eyes wide, and the cutting words washed over her, going in one ear and out the other as she struggled to understand what was being said to her.

            “-you’ve been a perfectly satisfactory employee thus far and I can hardly say that I regret headhunting you from Mackie, regardless of his complaints on the subject- furthermore I realise that in a working environment like the ARC irregularities will happen, desirable or otherwise -but you are not entitled to spend working hours indulging in mindless chatter when there is a job to be done. I asked you for those files and I expected them on my desk five minutes ago!”

            “I’m sorry,” Lorraine said, biting her tongue to keep her temper in check. “I was a little busy. There have been some unfortuna-“

            “Did I ask for an excuse?” Lester wanted to know, tone at its driest and nastiest. “I hired you for your efficiency, Miss Wickes. Exercise it!”

            “I’m sorry to hear you find me inefficient,” Lorraine said, voice growing steelier. “Perhaps you’d prefer to deal with the day-to-day personnel problems of the ARC yourself, sir?”

            “Stop being ridiculous and find me those files,” Lester snapped. “Your attitude is unacceptable, Miss Wickes!”

            “Yours is equally distressing, Sir James,” Lorraine snapped back. “One would think that since your temper is so shortened by Lieutenant Lyle’s being missing, you would be more tolerant of others in the same situation!”

            “The comparison would be appropriate if you were, Miss Wickes! As it is, you are simply making excuses! As far as I am aware, Lieutenant Owen has a girlfriend in Hereford, and Corporal Richards is unattached. I’ve never had reason to think you delusional. Find me those files and stop trying to exonerate yourself!”

            Corporal Richards is unattached. Lorraine stared at him. “You blind bastard,” she whispered, almost wonderingly.

            Lester apparently did not hear her. “The files, Miss Wickes!”

            “I’m sorry, Sir James,” Lorraine said softly, fists clenching. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly. You said Corporal Richards was unattached?”

            “Yes, to the best of my knowledge! So you can stop using him –I presume it was him- in his absence as an ex-“

            “You blind bastard!” Lorraine repeated, much more loudly.

            “What did you-“

            “When did you ever see past your nose? Blade is my boyfriend, for your information, and he’s missing and I don’t know if he’ll ever come back to me and I love him!” She almost screamed the last few words, and her hand didn’t seem to belong to her as it scooped up a stapler and flung it at Lester’s head- gaping, he retained the presence of mind to duck, and it flew through the open door out into the drum, skimming over Ranjit Khan’s astonished head and clattering to the floor.

            “I’m leaving!” Lorraine shouted, seized her bag and jacket and pushed roughly past Lester; he caught her arm.

            “Lorraine. Lorraine!”

            “What?” she hissed, narrow-eyed with fury.

            “Take the rest of the week off,” he said quietly, and released her; she turned and marched away, almost fleeing through the ARC. James Lester went back into his office, and almost collapsed into his chair, where he reflected on the evils of reserved employees and the dangers of pushing them too far.

            Lorraine walked through the ARC at a blistering pace, eyes burning, ignoring Caroline reaching out to touch her sleeve and ask if she was all right, shoving past Dr. Tegan when the other woman tried to catch hold of her and calm her, her heartbeat loud in her ears and her breathing ragged, hitching painfully. She got to the car park, unlocked her car and got in, throwing her bag across to the passenger seat and slumping over the steering wheel, where she finally gave way to pent-up fear and gut-clenching anxiety and sobbed desperately. Oh, God. She missed him so much. It would be so damned unfair if- if- she couldn’t say it even to herself- if he... didn’t come back. They’d only had a few real weeks together, close and shockingly easy and right. People had barely noticed; she knew Blade’s unit knew, maybe a few of the other soldiers, and Jenny and Abby knew, but the soldiers inhabited pretty much a separate sphere of the ARC to everyone else and Jenny and Abby had promised her not to gossip, because what they’d had had been so quiet and new Lorraine was afraid she’d blight it if she wasn’t careful. They were both discreet, and anyway the chief gossipers at the ARC seemed to think of Lorraine as someone above lust, love, anger or anything emotional and irrational- they’d have a nasty shock when the news of her shouting at Lester got round the building. Also, they were too busy swooning over Blade’s perfect backside for it to occur to them that the reason that they were seeing more of it lately was because he kept visiting Lorraine’s office- and if it had done, they would have assumed Jenny, who shared the office, was the attraction.

            It just wasn’t bloody fair. Lorraine cried, thoughts of a warm smile, careful hands and very green eyes passing through her head; a smile just for her, a cup of tea when she was working because he thought she needed one, calloused fingers light on the nape of her neck, directing her attention to the fact that it happened to be midnight, and there were better things to do than work then, of which sleep was only one.     

            Slowly the tears dried up, and she rested her head in her arms and entertained thoughts of using her old MI5 contacts to try and find out what exactly had happened to Blade, but swiftly dismissed it. Ian Mackie, her old boss, might have been able to do something, but he might not have done and she very much doubted finding out more would stop her being so frightened.

            Lorraine wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, started up the car and navigated out of the ARC’s car park, heading for home. When she got there she found the parking space she’d left that morning satisfactorily empty, and it was a few minutes’ work to park the car neatly and go into the house. Her landlady caught her in the hall. “Lorraine, dear, is everything all right? You look upset.”

            She bit her lip. “My boyfriend’s missing in action.”

            “Oh no.” The landlady patted her shoulder in sympathy. “If there’s anything I can do to help- a cup of tea and a biscuit, for starters? It must have been a horrible shock.”

            Lorraine considered refusing, but decided against it. “Yes, please.”

            Mrs. Godwin steered her into the part of the house she lived in. It had been a massive rectory, and Mrs. Godwin had inherited it on her father’s death and found it to be too much space. She’d never married, so the ‘Mrs’ was just an honorific, but you couldn’t call her ‘Miss’- she was very firmly Mrs. Godwin, a very definite lady who spoke Received Pronunciation, lived in cardigans and reading glasses and managed the people she rented her flats to with a firm and maternal hand. She’d converted part of the house into two decent-sized flats, and rented the one on the top floor to Lorraine at a very reasonable price.

            Lorraine sat down at the kitchen table while Mrs. Godwin pottered about with tea and carrot cake. “I don’t have any biscuits,” she explained cheerfully, “but carrot cake will do, yes?”

            “Please,” Lorraine said politely. She wasn’t hungry, and any of her large family would immediately have noticed –her mother and the twins’ automatic reaction would probably have been to offer her more food than she could eat, in fact- but if Mrs. Godwin saw she kindly overlooked it. Mrs. Godwin put a plate of carrot cake and a small fork in front of her, and she picked at it; moments later, a teapot and teacups appeared in front of her.

            “You don’t take sugar, do you, dear?”

            Lorraine shook her head and watched as Mrs. Godwin poured tea, added milk and gave her a cup- she still wasn’t hungry, but tea wouldn’t go amiss, and she sipped carefully at it, feeling it scald her tongue. The cake was very good. So was the tea. Lorraine was doing justice to neither of them.

            “Try not to worry too much,” Mrs. Godwin said after a short pause. “Your young man’s very capable of looking after himself. He’ll be back with you before you know it.”

            Lorraine almost smiled. “I hope so.” It came out much more worried and doubtful than she’d meant it to.

            “He will,” her landlady promised.

            From where Lorraine was sitting, it sounded meaningless. She hummed noncommittally and sipped at her tea.

            “Maybe you should contact your mother,” Mrs. Godwin suggested. “Or your sister. Jacinth, isn’t it?”

            “Yes. Maybe,” Lorraine said, only too aware that her mother would not have a clue where to start with a dilemma like this. “Or...” A thought struck her.

            “Or?” Mrs. Godwin prompted.

            “There’s a... kind of... I know some people who might understand.” Lorraine chewed her lip, thinking. “They call themselves WAGs, sometimes, Wives and Girlfriends, only the Army, not football. I’ve only met a few of them, but one of them, Lizzie Preston- she gave me her phone number ‘in case I ever wanted to talk’. I might call her.”

            “I think that might be a good idea.”

            There was a brief silence. Lorraine had eaten about half of the carrot cake. The tea was cooling before her, slowly; she wasn’t hungry, or thirsty, and she didn’t really have anything to say. She didn’t know how to explain how frightened she was to Mrs. Godwin, and she doubted Mrs. Godwin could help her.

            It struck her all at once, like a truth that had been hiding shyly in the queue of thoughts and having reached the front had thrown a stun grenade to get her attention, that she didn’t really want tea or cake or sympathy. She just wanted Blade, back, and safe, and preferably in one piece.

            Lorraine’s hands clenched on the teacup, and she forced them to relax: blinked hard once or twice, and looked up at Mrs. Godwin. “I- I think I should go up to my flat,” she said with an assumption of calm that didn’t entirely fail.

            Mrs. Godwin nodded in sympathy. “I hope you liked the cake.”

            “It was very nice,” Lorraine said.

            She got up to her flat at last, unlocked the door and stepped inside, locking it automatically behind her, and then she just stood there for a moment. Everything was familiar; the kitchen and living room, open-plan with her desk pushed up against one wall. The doors into bedroom and guest bedroom and bathroom, the soft blue walls, the prints on the walls, the TV, the clock on the wall ticking softly round to half-past one, the computer on the desk silent, quiescent. She hung her jacket up and put her bag down on the kitchen table, walked into her bedroom and looked around. Nothing had changed here either. The curtains were blowing in the breeze –she must have left the window open, she realised, the cold chill of the breeze striking her, and she closed it quickly- and the blinds rolled up, the double bed still tidily made.

            Lorraine sat down heavily on the bed and flopped back. Oh God, maybe she was blowing it out of proportion, but- missing in action? She was neither stupid nor badly informed, she had worked for MI5 and had not been deaf or blind when she filed reports or took phone calls, and the Major’s tone when he’d given her the news told her that this was serious, and he might not come back. Something should have changed. Something should be different.

            She felt something wet on her cheeks, and discovered that she was crying.

            It took her a very long time to stop.

            Eventually, when the tears had stopped coming and she’d climbed off the bed, splashed her face with cold water and convinced herself that she wouldn’t start crying at the drop of a hat again, she fished her mobile phone out of her bag and noticed a voicemail from Jenny Lewis. She clicked the button to listen to it.

            “Lorraine- it’s me, Jenny. Lester called and said you were upset- something about Blade? Call me when you get this.”

            Obediently, Lorraine dialled Jenny’s number. The other woman picked up. “Oh hi Lorraine this is a really bad time excuse me-“ Screams and roars were heard in the background, the call ended, and Lorraine was left staring at her phone and wondering both when that had become a normal phone call and whether Professor Cutter would manage to file his report on the incident in the background before she got back to work.

            She shook herself, tearing herself away from such fascinating reflections and sitting down on the sofa, kicking off her shoes and curling up comfortably before fishing through her contacts until she found a number labelled Lizzie Preston.

            Lorraine hesitated. She didn’t know Lizzie at all well: she’d only met her once. Blade had gone caving with some of the other soldiers, and she’d gone with him to meet some of the others’ girlfriends because Claire, Ditzy’s girlfriend, had invited her, and Lizzie had dropped in for a few minutes. They’d all had a lot of coffee in a small café, and Lorraine had felt appallingly shy, but everyone had been very nice, and had managed to stifle their curiosity about how a shrinking violet like Lorraine had managed to find herself dating someone like Blade. She had actually been really comfortable in Claire’s company at least, and they’d had a very interesting conversation about Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and which was better –Claire taught English, Lorraine just read Shakespeare’s plays for fun- but Mrs. Preston intimidated Lorraine a little; she was tall, ferociously organised, and had an accent posh enough to teach the Queen to speak.

            Lorraine looked at the number on her contacts list and wavered. On the one hand, she needed the reassurance of talking to someone who understood. On the other, she found Lizzie scarier than she’d ever found Blade, and really wouldn’t want to interrupt her if she was doing anything important. But wasn’t that why Lizzie had given her the number in the first place? Lorraine remembered- it had been just as Lizzie was about to leave the café, she’d jotted down a number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Lorraine, with a smile and an “In case you ever need to talk,” and Lorraine had smiled back and given Lizzie her own number in return, but Lorraine had not missed the sudden serious look on Claire’s face and oh God now she understood. Claire and Lizzie had known this was coming. They had known something like this would happen, sooner or later.

            That decided Lorraine: if they’d meant to offer her help, she was going to take it. She dialled the number.

            Lizzie picked up on the first ring. “Hello, Lizzie Preston.”

            “Hello, Lizzie-“ Lorraine stumbled over the name a little; Lizzie insisted on it, but it still felt too informal- “it’s me, Lorraine.”

            “Oh! I was expecting you to call. I tried your mobile number earlier, but it was switched off.”

            “I must have been in a meeting.”

            “I see. How are you? You sound like you’re holding up very well.” Lizzie’s voice had the kind of sympathy Lorraine could live with in it, the sort of sympathy that doesn’t coddle you but just understands, and it was practically designed to invite confidences.

            Lorraine half-choked with laughter. “I’m really not. I threw a stapler at my employer.”

            Lizzie laughed. “Oh, Lorraine!”

            “He was upsetting me,” Lorraine explained, hesitated, and evaluated exactly how much she should tell Lizzie. “You know James Lester?”

            “Of course. Lyle’s boyfriend.”

            “He’s my employer,” Lorraine said ruefully.

            “Heavens. That must be exhausting. Does he ever say something that isn’t cutting?”

            “It’s not normally- I mean, I can deal with it –but...” she trailed off. “He didn’t know that Niall and I were together, and he was irritable because of Lieutenant Lyle being missing, and I was a little slower than usual with some personnel files... and he thought I was using Niall going missing as an excuse when I shouldn’t have been...”

            “Oh, Lorraine. That must have been horrible.”

            “He took it back, sort of.”

            “Sort of?”

            “He gave me leave for the rest of the week, which he’s going to regret when he has to deal with everything himself.”

            “Still.” Lizzie sighed. “You said you have the rest of the week off?”

            “Yes?”

            “Are you fit to drive?”

            “Definitely.”

            “Would you like to come down to Hereford? Perhaps stay a couple of nights, if you’d like to. Company that understands is always best in these situations. Claire’s coming over, and you can miss David and Niall together and plan how you’re going to kill them for frightening you so much when they get back.”

            Lorraine paused, nodded, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand- then remembered Lizzie couldn’t see her and said, “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

            “You wouldn’t be. I vividly remember the utter mess I was when Graham first went missing- believe me, company helps.”

            “Then- then, I’d love to. Thanks, Lizzie.”

            “It’s no problem.” Lizzie’s voice was warm, as if she was smiling. “Phone me when you get to Hereford and I’ll give you directions.”

            Lorraine packed a bag- pyjamas, clean clothes, a book, toothbrush -texted Jenny to let her know her plans, and picked up her jacket again. For a moment she paused, and then put it carefully back down, going into her bedroom to flick through her chest of drawers until she found an old, fitted and extremely comfortable black leather jacket her sister had tired of and passed onto her in an attempt to persuade her to wear something different from her usual style (“I swear to God, Lorraine, you are the embodiment of smart-casual!”) and which had turned into her equivalent of a comfort blanket. Only then did she lock up, pick up her weekend bag, head back downstairs to her car and take the A to Z out of the glove-box. Hereford couldn’t be that hard to find on a map.

            As it turned out, half-past two on a Tuesday was a surprisingly good time to drive across England. Although getting out of London was unspeakable in terms of the traffic, the motorway was fine, and Lorraine tuned the radio to Capital F.M. and then when the signal for that failed Radio One so she didn’t have the mental space to think, given that she was already listening and driving. The music was nice enough –not that Lorraine knew anything about music; she wasn’t really interested in it- and the presenters chatty enough to make it easy to listen to, and the traffic news came in handy sometimes. It started to rain when she was well on her way down the M4, and she had to slow to a crawl for a while, and then she realised she was short on petrol and had to refuel, but there were only a few bad moments when she felt like there should be someone else in the passenger seat or a text on her mobile saying he hoped she would have a good weekend, or something like that, and she didn’t tear up at the wheel. There was something very comforting about the set of rules and regulations and the concentration you had to apply to driving, particularly the way you could use it to stop yourself thinking about anything else.

            Once she reached Hereford, she found a large church to use as a point of reference and pulled over by it, then got out her phone and rang Lizzie again. “Hello? It’s me, Lorraine.”

            “Lorraine! Where are you?”

            “In Hereford. Outside... er...” Lorraine glanced up at the church. “St. Stephen’s.”

            “Oh, fantastic. That’s about half an hour’s drive away, I can give you directions easily. Wait- Lorraine, could you do me a favour?” Lizzie sounded concerned.

            “Of course. What is it?”

            “Claire lives close to St. Stephen’s- if you face St. Stephen’s and walk to your right, it’s the second road on the left.” Lizzie paused. “According to the lads who got out, David was hurt.”

            “Oh no,” Lorraine said, feeling a little yank on her heart, involuntarily imagining how she’d feel if she heard that Blade might be not only missing but injured and shuddering.

            “It would be a real kindness if you could pick her up. I think she’s a little too far to pieces to drive. I anticipated being able to do it myself, but...”

            “It’s fine,” Lorraine said hastily. “I’d be happy to. Does Claire know where your house is?”

            “Yes. Thank you so much, Lorraine.”

            “Then she can give me directions... it might be easier. And it’s all right, really, I don’t mind at all.”

            There was a smile in Lizzie’s voice. “You’re too decent for your own good.”

            “Tell that to Niall!” Lorraine joked, and then paused wide-eyed to wonder where the hell that had come from: she only ever made even small double-entendres sometimes, off the cuff, and in front of her sister, and then it was such an event it would completely derail the conversation.

            Lizzie laughed, and there was a surprising amount of wickedness in it. “Perhaps I will. I’ll see you in about half an hour, forty-five minutes, then.”

            “All right,” Lorraine said. “You said Claire’s house was two streets down? What’s the house number?”

            “Seven,” Lizzie answered. “Seven Makepeace Lane.”

            “Okay, thanks. See you soon.”

            “Bye!”

            Lorraine ended the call, pulled out of the parking space –leaving behind a disappointed traffic warden who’d been creeping up on her to slap her with a parking ticket- and drove slowly down the road till she came to the second turning on the left, followed it, and looked for number seven. She found it easily, parked neatly for the umpteenth time that day, and got out, putting her weekend bag in the boot as an afterthought, before walking up to number seven and ringing the doorbell.

            Claire answered the door, looking red-eyed and drawn with worry, her hair tangled and messy. “Lorraine?” she said in surprise.

            “Yes,” Lorraine said, a little shyly. “I... Blade. I miss him and I threw a stapler at my employer, and Lizzie invited me down to Hereford so we can plot ways of murdering him and Ditzy when they get back for upsetting us. She asked me to give you a lift, since I happened to be driving in.”

            “That’s really nice of you,” Claire said, and sniffled. Silently, Lorraine passed her a tissue, and she blew her nose. “Thank you. Please come in.”

            “Shall we go?” Lorraine suggested, stepping over the threshold as Claire shut the door behind her. “Oh- you should get your coat and so on, I suppose.”

            “It might be an idea,” Claire agreed.

            “Yes.” Lorraine hesitated. “When did you... find out?”

            “Three o’clock this morning,” Claire said, and blew her nose again. “Colonel Jackson rang me.”

            “Major Preston waited till seven-thirty.”

            “Probably because you and Blade haven’t been together long,” Claire said practically, yanking a blue coat off the coatpegs in the hall and picking up her keys. “One of the lads probably told him to tell you. My money’s on Finn. The boy is not bright, but his mother brought him up to consider other people, and every now and then he gets something right... Wait while I do the alarm.”

            Lorraine waited outside while Claire punched a code into the alarm control pad, darted outside and locked the door. “I parked just down here,” she said, and they walked down the road and climbed into Lorraine’s car.

            “Bad drive? You live in London, don’t you?”

            “Yes... and no, it was all right. Can you give me directions from here to Lizzie’s house?”

            “Yes.”

            After that they didn’t talk much. Claire gave clear directions and they didn’t get lost, although there was a hairy moment with a cyclist at a traffic light which jolted them out of their mutual silence; Lorraine slammed on the brakes, and Claire swore, startled. “Did that cyclist have a deathwish?”

            “I’m not totally sure. I could ask,” Lorraine suggested crossly, winding down her window and sticking her head out.

            “No, he’s out of earshot by now. Lorraine, the lights are green.”

            “Oh!” Lorraine hastily took her foot off the brake. “Is it left here or right?”

            “Go straight on. It’s the next right turning, and then another right, and we’re there,” Claire said.