Part Six: The Day After

It was the Newbury police that reached him first, of course. There'd been a trip to casualty and an overnight stay in the community hospital before they were finally able to bring him home. He slept the trip through and decided it would be too far to trek down the hall to his bed. Hathaway settled him onto his sofa. Lyn sweet-talked him into drinking a cup of tea and sipping some beef broth, they covered him with three of his heaviest blankets, and then they let him drift back off again. He needed the rest, and there wasn't much they could do to keep him awake anyway.

Chief Superintendent Innocent eased her way into the flat a short time later.

"How is he? Really?" she asked looking down at her newly-found inspector huddled deep within the pile of blankets and snoring softly.

"He'll be all right," Hobson assured her. "Probably wouldn't have hurt if he'd stayed in hospital another day or two…but he wanted to be home. And there are plenty of us to keep an eye on him."

"I'm staying through the weekend anyway," Lyn told her.

"Ken decided not to come?"

Lyn shook her head. "He said he'd wait until Dad was up for a visit…" There was a certain degree of doubt in her words which made the others think it best to not pursue the topic any further.

"So?" Hathaway asked Innocent. "What was it all about?"

"You were right. We should have been looking in my case files, not his. Jason Stroham…a con man from my sergeant days, way back when. My inspector at the time and Stroham had it in for one another. Stroham led us a merry chase, but, in the end, we got him. Fast forward eleven years, and he's out, using an alias, working the same old tricks on wealthy business men, a good many of them owning a race horse or two, and the Jockey Club. Two weeks before the deal's in play, he discovers that there's a chief superintendent on the guest list; after a little digging he finds out it's even worse—I could easily identify him. He couldn't just take me out. Not without losing my husband's funding and possibly his company's as well…"

"So, he went looking for another way—my dad."

"I'm afraid so."

"You got him though?"

"Oh, yes. Made quite an impression at the dinner in the process. Mr. Innocent might never live it down…" She looked rather pleased at this last bit of information. The others smiled with her.

"Dad will be glad for that then," Lyn said. "That you caught Stroham, I mean."

"Lewis did a good job on Jason's accomplice himself. I just wish…well, I'm glad you were there, James. Good instincts." On that note, Innocent headed off.

"She's right," Lyn said after the chief superintendent had gone. "I'm glad you were there for Dad, too."

"It wasn't me," Hathaway said. "It was Lewis…he saved himself."

"Then for all of us…" Hobson said, and Lyn nodded her agreement.

Hathaway frowned at them both, shook his head, and decided it was an argument he didn't want to pursue. He went instead into the kitchen to rummage around and see what he could find for lunch. His cooking skills having grown a bit rusty and Lewis' kitchen not being all that well-stocked, the prospects didn't look good. A store-run was in order. He persuaded Hobson to join him, and they left Lyn washing up her dad's dirty dishes from the night of the murder.

It was probably the quiet that woke Lewis. He'd slept easily through their comings and goings and earlier conversations, but the quiet…he stirred uncomfortably on the sofa and was only too glad to open his eyes and find himself at home. He licked his lips, stifled a moan, and pulled himself up to sit and look around him.

He'd never particularly felt at home in the flat. He'd thought often that he shouldn't have been so hasty in selling off the home he'd shared with Val. At the time, it had seemed the only thing to do, a desperate attempt to keep from wallowing in the despair of his loss…or had she been right? Had he been in a hurry to rid himself of their home because he'd been angry at her…what was it Morse had said about McNutt? He'd felt betrayed by his wife when she had died.

Had Lewis felt the same? Had he blamed Val for leaving him devastated and alone? Had he blamed her for his loss, for not surviving? He carefully rose and made his way over to her picture on the shelf…their picture on the shelf. Laughing in the sun on their holidays the year she'd died. He'd been lucky to have her, lucky to have the years with her, the kids, the memories…they'd had a good run. Had he blamed her for bringing it to an end?

Well, he must have wondered about it anyway, deep down there somewhere. Because she'd never been in the shed, never warmed him in her arms or helped him stay upright as he fought to keep from crashing to the floor. It had only been his mind's attempt at keeping him going that put her there. He'd known it even then. It had been him telling himself to forgive her for leaving him there alone in the dark and cold without even the hope of seeing her again.

Well, if he had been angry, and he couldn't say that he had, he wasn't any longer. She'd never have willingly left him to struggle on alone, and he knew that as surely as he knew Hathaway, Hobson, Lyn, Innocent, and the others wouldn't have left him to die alone in that shed.

"I love you, Lass," he whispered to her even though he knew she couldn't hear him. She was four years gone, but the words were just as true as if she'd still been standing at his side.

Author's Note: This was sparked, no doubt, by WhyAye's Bloody Shakespeare with its poignant scene when DI Rebus asks Lewis if he has any regrets. "No," he says… "She was bloody marvelous, and I had the good sense to appreciate it." Throw in many, many enjoyable hours reading Dick Francis with his hero trapped in the tack room, the horse trailer, the ship's cabin, or some other tight and uncomfortable locked room and only himself to ride to the rescue and somewhere horses thundering by in a wild flurry of majesty and power. Bring it all to a boil in the cold, dark days of December, and I guess this is what you get. Thanks to WhyAye and in memory of Dick Francis, who wrote the way I wish I could.