Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘Stop looking, I’ve found it,’ she called.

James blinked, not hearing her. He continued to stare at his reflection. ‘Gwen?’

‘I said, I found it.’

‘Gwen!’

She poked her head around the bathroom door. ‘It was under the ficus.’

‘Not that. Look at my eyes.’

‘Your eyes?’

He turned from the mirror to face her. She came closer. ‘Look at my eyes,’ he repeated.

‘Is this some kind of trick to get me in grabbing range, because we do not have time?’

‘Gwen-’

She inspected his eyes. ‘They’re lovely. What do you want?’

‘They’re OK?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Just for a second there, they looked like they were-’

‘What?’

‘Different colours.’

‘Your eyes?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Let me look again.’ She stared more carefully this time. ‘Two lovely brown eyes, check.’

‘The right one looked blue just then.’

‘You imagined it. Now shake your tail-feather, we got to go.’

She walked back out of the bathroom. James took a final look at himself in the mirror. His eyes were brown.

‘I just need to find a shirt,’ he called.

‘I ironed you one,’ she called back.

‘What?’

Gwen reappeared in the bathroom door and held out a clean, pressed white shirt for him.

‘You didn’t have to iron me a shirt,’ he said, taking it.

Gwen thought about that for a second. ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t, did I?’ she said, with genuine surprise. ‘Sorry. Must be the guilt.’

‘Yeah, what was that about guilt?’ he asked, pulling on the shirt as he followed her into the lounge.

‘I haven’t even been here a week, and your flat was beginning to look like someone had conducted controlled explosions of your books, clothes and crockery.’

James buttoned his shirt and glanced around. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘It looks like-’

‘What?’

‘It looks like… like the maid’s been in.’

She grinned, cheeky. ‘Like that, would we? Me in a little French maid’s outfit and a feather duster?’

‘You didn’t have to tidy, or iron me a shirt.’

‘I was feeling guilty,’ she replied, picking up her phone and carkeys. ‘Six days I’ve been staying here-’

‘Living. I thought it was living?’

‘Whatever it is I’m doing here, I’ve been doing it for six days, and it was starting to show. I never thought of myself as a slob, but your place was always so neat and tidy.’

‘What are you saying? That I’m compulsive?’

‘No. I’m saying I was a bit too free and easy with your home. I got up this morning and just noticed. Wine glasses on there. Plates stacked under there. Eighteen — eighteen ! — mugs on that shelf. CDs everywhere. All the Andy disks out of the box, and it was Saturday we were watching those. And I won’t tell you what I found behind the sofa.’

‘Tell me what you found behind the sofa.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Was it knickers?’

‘Yes, it was knickers.’

‘Gwen, you didn’t have to straighten the place up.’

She looked at him. ‘I didn’t want you chucking me out because I was a messy bitch.’

‘I’m not going to chuck you out,’ he said.

‘You promise?’

He kissed her instead.

They were on their way downstairs to the car when her phone rang.

‘That’ll be Ianto,’ she said, taking her phone out. ‘Hello? Oh, hello Rhys.’

Gwen looked at James and shrugged helplessly.

He shrugged back.

‘No, I’m off to work right now. Fine, fine, you?’

James opened the front door as gently as he could and picked up some mail. She walked out past him onto the path, still talking. ‘Yesterday? No, no, my phone was busy a lot yesterday. That’s probably why. Sorry. Lot of important calls I had to take.’

James locked the front door and followed her down the tiled path into the street. It was a clean, fresh morning, with a golden tint to the sky.

‘No, OK. Maybe at the end of the week. Or the start of next. See how things go. All right. All right, Rhys. Gotta go. All right. Yes. Bye. Bye now.’

She hung up.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Oh, he just wants to meet for a drink. Have a talk about stuff.’

‘You ready for that?’

‘Got to do it, haven’t I?’

They got in the car. ‘Do you think you and I should have a conversation before I have one with Rhys?’ she asked.

‘About what?’ he asked. ‘Why?’

‘About… us.’ Gwen looked at him. ‘Splitting up with Rhys is a big decision to take. For me. For Rhys too. I’d hate to make a decision like that without consulting you.’

‘OK,’ he said.

‘Moving on,’ said Jack, sifting through the papers in front of him. ‘The lights seen over Roath?’

‘Bartok,’ said Owen.

‘Really?’

‘Kids playing with a box of fireworks.’

‘OK. The reports of vibrations and “odd, persistent humming noises” in St Fagans? I’m hoping that’s not going to turn out to be another one of those harmonic tesseract thingies.’

‘Nope,’ smiled Owen. ‘Bartok. It was traced to a gang of road-menders using a poorly positioned generator. Natural acoustics did the rest.’

Jack nodded. ‘Great. OK, item six… “man-thing” reported on the commons by Sandhill Way?’

‘Weevil,’ said Owen. ‘We got positive ID off the CCTV footage we borrowed from the police.’

‘And when you say “borrowed”…?’ said Gwen.

‘All right, “stole”,’ replied Owen. ‘It was a Weevil, anyway. Gone to ground now. We’ll keep watching and move on it when it shows again.’

Jack turned another page. ‘Missing pets in Cathays?’

‘Gone quiet,’ said James.

‘Probably another Bartok,’ said Owen.

‘Let’s keep an eye on that too, though,’ said Jack. He flicked another page over. ‘This one from yesterday. An adult male run down on City Road around lunchtime. It’s flagged because, according to witnesses, the guy stopped the car that hit him dead and remained on his feet.’

‘There’s not much more available on that,’ said James.

‘The eye-witnesses also report the man as behaving oddly prior to the RTA,’ said Gwen. ‘General consensus is he was off his face on something Class A.’

‘Probably wound up in A amp;E the moment he came down,’ said Owen. ‘I’ve seen that happen. People so high they wander around with a broken leg until the buzz wear’s off and they notice.’

‘OK,’ said Jack. ‘Put that one in pending. Right… the metallic object found on the construction site on Tweedsmuir Road?’

‘Good thing we didn’t move on that immediately,’ said Toshiko.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Owen. ‘We’d have looked pretty stupid storming in there mob-handed.’

‘Why?’ asked Jack.

‘Because it’s a Bartok,’ said Owen.

‘Why?’ asked Jack.

‘Because… that’s what we call false alarms, isn’t it?’ Owen replied, glancing at the others for corroboration.

‘No,’ said Jack, ‘I meant why is it a Bartok?’

‘Because… uhm…’ Owen answered, pausing again, as if it was a trick question, ‘James’s third-favourite TV show is Eternity Base and, between Seasons Three and Four, they changed the actress playing feisty head pilot Lauren Bartok, and the replacement actress was such a disappointment, there was a huge fan outcry, and the producers got the original actress back in for Season Five-’

‘Owen,’ said Jack.

‘… hence “Bartok” meaning a disappointment and, by extension and usage, “false alarm”-’

‘Owen,’ Jack repeated.

‘… What?’

‘I know why we call it a “Bartok”,’ said Jack calmly, ‘I meant why is this a Bartok?’