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Wolf

by Joodiff

Peter Boyd is a wolf. A wolf in wolf's clothing. Boyd is a wolf, and Grace knows it. She has known it for so long that she has learned to live with it. It has never frightened her, but sometimes it has deeply unsettled her. He is a hard man, a fractured man. He's tall – close on six feet in his bare feet – and he's broad through the shoulder, but he also knows how to make himself appear far bigger than he really is. Consciously and unconsciously, he uses his stance and stature to intimidate friend and foe alike. He is perfectly comfortable trespassing in the personal space of others, but he reacts badly to the same tactics being used against him. People in his personal space make him bristle.

He is not yet bristling, but the evening has passed through the riotous stage, through the introspective stage and may now be heading for a very bad place indeed. Boyd, the wolf in wolf's clothing, has had altogether too much to drink, and tonight it matters because tonight, for the first time, he is no longer their leader and it casts all of them adrift. Tonight, he is simply a tough, complicated, and damaged man with no ship left to steer, no mast left to nail his colours to, and no-one to help him nurse the almighty hangover that surely awaits him in the morning.

It's breaking her heart, watching him as he drinks and talks and grows increasingly shadowed behind the brittle façade protecting him. She knows the other two see it, both her pain and his, naked and raw and far too far apart. Loyalty has kept them all here, but Grace knows the clock is ticking. Very soon they will be out in the cold, crisp air of a dry spring night in London. Cabs will be called, farewells said, empty promises made. Probably, this is the last time the four of them will ever be together as group, sharing their memories and paying respect to their ghosts. Professionally, some of their paths may cross again in the future, but tonight… Tonight is without doubt the end of an era.

Boyd is pugnacious, burning bright with all the strength and defiance that has always fuelled him in difficult times. It frightens her because she knows the other side of his coin far, far too well. He glances at her, mid-sentence, and she realises she has no idea where the conversation has turned. She smiles slightly, hoping it will be enough of a contribution, and the debate – which appears to have something to do with the merits of a 'back to basics' approach to modern policing – continues.

She fears for Boyd. The other two – and Grace – have places left that they will be able to fit into. Boyd does not. Boyd has too much pride to accept the post he has been offered at Hendon, or any other position carefully designed to keep him from being too much of a thorn in the Met's side until they can safely pension him off, and everyone around the table knows it. Especially her.

Part of her – a part of her that is both more and less than simply a psychologist – is suffering from a tiny but terrifying suffocating fear that Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, late of the Met's Cold Case Unit, will survive only a very short time cast adrift in the vast, empty ocean that's waiting for him. Boyd has been a copper his entire adult life. It's all he knows, and he's sacrificed so very much for it. She forces herself to keep the tint of fear out of her eyes, knowing that he will spot it instantly, even, as he is, several sheets to the wind. He does not want anyone's fear, just as he doesn't want anyone's pity. So this evening he is relentlessly, boorishly upbeat.

If the world turns the way Grace worries it might, she fears Peter Boyd will be eventually found dead, probably in his garage, with a single gunshot wound to his head. The gun - probably a Metropolitan Police Glock acquired via illicit means - will still be in his hand. The Coroner will record a verdict of suicide, and no-one will doubt its veracity. As a mental health professional, she will not be surprised. As a friend and former colleague, she will not be surprised.

She sees his future – one possible future – very clearly indeed. Boyd will withdraw, slowly and irrevocably, and he will accidentally be allowed to do so as his younger friends and colleagues move on without him. And one day – though she believes it will in fact be in the early hours of a morning – he will go out into his garage and shoot himself. In the end, without the distraction of work or anything else worthwhile, all the pain and regret will simply overwhelm him.

"Grace…?" he says, a slightly quizzical, slightly irritable note underscoring her name.

"Sorry," she covers quickly, "I was miles away."

Impossibly dark eyes, full of shadows, regard her curiously for a moment. He has always had an uncanny ability to read her mind… when it suits him. He says, "You want to go with them, or…?"

She realises that Eve and Spencer are pulling on their jackets. It seems they are moving on to somewhere that will stay open for another few hours at least. She wonders where they can possibly have found the energy from, but it isn't just the years that are weighing her down. She says, "Oh… no. No, I don't think so. But feel free…"

Boyd snorts derisively. "Yeah, I can just picture myself dancing the night away."

On the cosmic scale of middle-aged, divorced policemen, Boyd is actually not a bad dancer. She knows this from several office Christmas parties, riotous 'end of term' affairs where copious amounts of alcohol have been consumed. Traditionally, he drinks too much and dances with the youngest, prettiest members of female staff available to him before harmlessly falling asleep alone in his office. She has always laughed along with the others and tried never to ask herself whether or not it matters that he has never, not once in all the years she's known him, asked her to dance with him in front of their colleagues.

They go out into the night air, all of them. The final moments are awkward. This will very likely be the last goodbye, the last instants of a close and cheerfully dysfunctional work family. She fears it will be her who will shed public tears, but in the end the last, severing blow falls too quickly for such things as Eve and Spencer disappear together into the back of a black London taxi without any of the maudlin farewells she has been desperate not to witness.

It's just her and Boyd and the orange city sky. The light pollution in London seems to get worse with every year that passes. There's a chill in the air and Grace is grateful for it. If the apprehension overtaking her makes her shiver, she will be able to blame it on the cold.

"Boyd," she says, not knowing what words will follow.

He looks at her, that same look of mixed curiosity and insight. The harsh street lighting does him no favours. He looks old. Worn. He holds up his hand, palm towards her. "Spare me the analysis, Grace."

She settles for honesty. "I'm worried about you, Boyd."

"Why? Because another member of my team is dead, or because there isn't a team any longer?"

"Because you're my friend," she says. She can see the tension in his stance. Boyd does not want to talk, and he knows that she knows it. If she pushes, his reaction will be predictably unpredictable. And they both know that, too.

"Nightcap?" he asks, but the sudden flippancy in his tone doesn't match the sudden flintiness in his eyes. Boyd is serious. Tonight, he has no intention of talking. Not to her, not to anyone.

She holds his gaze just long enough to make it quite clear that it is respect, not fear, that makes her back away from all the things that hurt too much. She says, "Why not?"

They start to walk, and she slips an arm through his, ignoring his quick, sideways glance. There is something very comforting about the solid, reliable strength she can feel beneath his tailored sleeve. It has ever been so. He has a physical presence that makes it quite clear he can handle himself… and any distressed damsel he should happen across. She is not a damsel in distress. But she squeezes his arm slightly anyway.

Her place is nearer. Besides, neither of them wants to dwell on what had so recently been found on his property. Some wounds need to grow a scab before they can be examined without fear. She busies herself pouring drinks, keeping her back to him. It is almost certain he won't be leaving before breakfast. Probably, he will sleep in her bed with her. It won't be the first time, and she finds herself praying that it won't be the last.

He's younger than her. Not by much, but by enough for her to still feel self-conscious about the extra years at moments like this. Those few insignificant years have never seemed to occur to him, much less bother him. She envies him that.

Still not looking at him, she says, "When do you have to tell them what you've decided?"

"I've already told them," he replies. It is supposed to close the conversation before it starts.

She faces him at last, carries a drink to him. "Seriously, Boyd. How long have you got to make up your mind?"

He sighs, takes the glass. "Drop it, Grace."

His defences are up. There is no point in attempting to push him any further. If she tries, she knows he will simply lose his temper, and the force of his anger is legendary. Hardened detectives have been known to quake like frightened children in the face of it. Grace doesn't fear his wrath, but she knows better to waste her time chasing a lost cause. Tonight is not the right time. She holds up her hands in surrender, retires to her favourite chair.

Bristling or not, he is a decorative addition to her sofa. Perhaps, with his aquiline nose and sharp dark eyes, he isn't exactly conventionally handsome, but he's striking, and there's something about his wolfish grin and the glint in his eye that has always had a certain effect on her. And even if both are currently absent, he still looks appealing. She sometimes thinks she that perhaps she loves him far more than is good for her and far more than she will ever allow him to know. It's a self-defence mechanism. Sadly, she's almost sure he does not love her in the same way. Nor will he ever. He sees her as a friend, as –

"Bollocks," he says succinctly, "I'm dead on my feet. Let's just go to bed."

"You're such a romantic, Boyd," she says, but his bluntness amuses her, and finally lifts her sombre mood, just a little.

"I am," he agrees, levering himself to his feet. He puts down his glass and holds out a hand to her.

Peter Boyd is a wolf. A wolf in wolf's clothing. But Grace stands up and takes that proffered hand anyway.

- the end -