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It’s Melanie, of all people, who first points it out. She aims a sharp finger at the back of the tousled head as it sways and jinks in front of the kettle, waiting to fill the assorted chipped, smudged, stained, illegible, well-loved mugs.
“Why,” she demands, “did no-one tell me Daisy could sing?!”
The other two look at the former officer, then at each other, then at Melanie, then back at Daisy. As the kettle hisses, a remarkably sweet tone croons something indistinct, lilting over the teaspoons and delving into the sugar.
Basira pulls a slight, indecipherable face. “It’s a Welsh thing,” she shrugs.
“It’s a pack thing,” mutters Jon darkly, only half-sardonic.
“Oi!” she lobs backwards without turning, and Melanie shivers lightly, though for being heard or the melody ceasing, she couldn’t say. “I’ll put almond milk in yours and then we’ll see who’s laughin’.”
“I thought you’d given up police brutality,” he shoots straight back on the return and Melanie gapes slightly, staring as he moves in while Daisy chuckles, grinning across her shoulder, to help her manoeuvre the various vessels, standing companionably tight at her side.
Melanie side-eyes Basira, who shrugs again. “It’s just them,” she says, eyes mild as ever.
Melanie counts the mugs, frowns, opens her mouth, and Basira lays a hand on her arm, shakes her head.
Oh. Right.
The kettle roars happily.
“Someone’s happy,” he murmurs before he can help himself.
She looks puzzled as she taps the milky door shut behind her with a foot. “Eh?”
“The singing?”
“Oh,” she says. “No, just a tune.”
“You want to be careful with– well, with that kind of thing. Around here.” Anything loud, bright, connecting, here near Peter’s attention.
He should have done something before now. He wonders if it’s too late.
“Don’t need to tell me, Martin,” she tells him, face solemn as she plonks down the tea, thumps into the chair opposite and raises her boot to rest against – not on top, against – the back of his desk. “I was talking with Nihar in Artefact Storage. You remember that temp, what’s his name…?” Her head turns down and to one side, free fingers clicking. “Alan. Aaron? Aaron,” she decides, pronouncing it like Aeron.
Martin frowns. “No…?”
“Well, he wasn’t around long, as it goes, on account of… well…”
Martin swallows, cold swelling in his throat. He takes a rather larger sip of tea than he’d usually, to try to banish it. Bloody Peter! “Go on…?”
“Well,” she nods, “anyway, everyone thought that everyone else had given him The Talk, only, being short-staffed and all, if anyone did, they kind of rushed it. That, or they’d no idea what could happen.”
“Shit,” he mutters into his mug.
“Yeah, anyway,” she says, taking a sip and sighing, stretching her shoulders briefly with a small sound, “turns out that it’s not just words or pictures make a document dangerous.”
“Wait, what?”
“The thing he was working on before he vanished? Sheet music.”
“Oh. Oh. A Leitner?”
Her mouth tilts. “Yeah, turns out that Aaron was a musician, so they reckon he tried to sing it or hum it or something.”
“Okay… okay, you said vanished. Wh– What did–?”
“When they came into the room he was all but gone. Chris said it was like he was flickering into nothingness, but Nihar said it was like each… strand of him was turning into notes that you could almost see.” Her gaze was distant for a moment. “Turns out the final instruction on the last page was dim.” She narrows her eyes briefly for the confused look on his face. “Diminuendo – means to fade out, get quieter.”
“Oh. So fade to nothing?”
“Mmh. It was ppp, they said – very quiet. Some people say that, if you go into that room, shut the door, hold your breath, you can still just about hear him…”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
They sit in their own breathless hush for a moment, mugs forgotten.
“Hold on,” he says, eventually. “What was his name?”
“Aaron.”
“Surname?”
“I don’t remember. Adje… something…?” She shrugs, takes another sip of coffee, gazing blandly into it.
He frowns, brings out the staff roster and starts flicking through it. “A temp, you say?”
“Well, whether or not he intended to be.” And there’s a small chuckle in her voice.
“Adje, Adje… no, nothing. Aaron Adje… Uhh. Yyyou–”
She raises an eyebrow, pulling her gaze to his.
“‘Air On A G String.’”
“Something like that.”
“You– I– Di– did you just make a joke…?!”
She smirks. “Maybe. Tipyn Bach.”
He splutters. “I didn’t even know you were capable!”
“Well… it’s like lying, isn’t it, Martin?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Drink up, though – it’s getting cold.”
“You,” he grumbles, reaching for his mug, “are very distracting.”
“What are friends for?”
“No way!” shrieks Melanie over a crowd of empty glasses.
Basira nods. “S’all true. I was there.”
“No way!”
“‘Who… Who is this?’” Daisy is stuttering, gruffly and, somehow, in a Birmingham accent, loosely curled fist at the side of her head. “‘This is Sergeant Jones, who is this?’ I tell you,” she says, in her normal voice, “watching a man having an existential crisis at his own desk is funnier than it sounds.”
“Wait,” interjects Jon, who’s been nursing a single gin and tonic for well over an hour, “how could you see him…?”
“Someone,” she nods toward Basira, who smirks lightly, “had found a way to get his webcam to give a live feed to whoever wasn’t in the office, or just wanted to watch discreetly. How did you do that, by the way – never asked.”
“It’s not what you know,” she replies smugly, “but who you know.”
“Riiight.”
Melanie is bouncing in her seat. “Do me, do me!”
“Hah!”
“No, go on!”
“How drunk are you, Melanie?” asks Basira.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Great point!” announces Daisy. “You’re on. Okay,” she closes her eyes, and Jon, though he doesn’t quite mean to, feels her gathering… evidence…? The pitch and tone, where the resonance sits, how dry it sounds, how much higher than her own, the kinds of things she says. She’s also relying, just a little, on the background noise to cover any imperfections. She’s remembering how her own voice sounded and felt after a cigarette, is sitting in Melanie’s head for a second.
“Look,” she says, and they all lean forward to hear something a touch more clipped and nasal, “I’m not saying this isn’t super-interesting, but I do have some actual work to be getting on with?”
“Hah!” says Melanie. Then: “Keep going!”
“Well,” she drawls, “it’s not like Elias is going to die all by himself, is it?!”
“We can hope,” mutters Jon.
“Ohhh…!” says Melanie, a touch overloud. “Do Elias!”
“Ugh, God,” says Basira. “Do we have to?”
“Why not?!”
“I am not going to the pub with him!”
Daisy barks a laugh. “Okay,” she tells Melanie, Welshness restored, “you’re on, but,” she raises a finger, “I’ll want two,” another finger joins it, “shots of whiskey first – one shitty blend, cheap as you like, and one decent single malt. Not in the same glass. Got it?”
Melanie frowns but lurches to her feet anyway. “Okay,” she says, feeling for her wallet. “Okay, but why?”
“Well, one is to help with the voice, the other,” she pauses for dramatic effect, “is to help wash the taste out of my mouth after…”
“Hah!” She looks around the table. “Anyone else?” They shake their heads. “Okay,” she says, and wobbles towards the bar.
“I’ll, er, go help her,” says Basira, who’s closest, and probably soberest.
“Good call,” Daisy agrees with a lazy grin. Basira looks… warm for a moment, then heaves herself up and after Melanie, who is trying to elbow her way past other people at the bar like a particularly determined polecat.
“Should, er, should we intervene?” he asks, somewhat nervously.
“Nah,” she drawls, “no blood shed yet.”
“You’re in a good mood.”
“Nice night. Everyone’s back. She’s alright, that one.”
“Melanie?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, the barmaid,” she drawls sarcastically, nodding towards a spectacularly tattooed woman with swimmer’s shoulders.
“I think you’re supposed to say ‘bar manager’ now.”
“Yeah, anyway, it’s her, obviously, that I want to get to know better.”
“Nicola Bryce,” he answers automatically, “Thirty-two, from North Acton, injured her knee last week when she–”
She nudges him. “Stop that.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He clears his throat into the gathering, otherwise comfortable silence. “So, you do any voices?”
“Been known to try. Why?” She twists her head to look at him. Sighs, rolls her eyes a little. “You gonna ask me or what?”
“Uh?” He probably looks as shifty and guilty as he feels.
“Not ask me,” she says, lowering her voice portentously with the wiggling-fingers gesture she uses to indicate Spooky, “just ask, innit?”
He looks furtively again at the bar, sees Basira carefully, out of the corner of her eye, watching Melanie intently tapping at her phone as they wait.
“Fine,” he says, clearing his throat, lowering his voice anyway, “can you do…” Come on, man! “Martin?”
“Probably.”
“Will you? Please?”
This time, attuned to it as he is, he feels her gathering Martin so strongly it’s as if the man is here. He watches her summon the North, summon his stammer and ready blush, the fingers wringing together, the way he has of peeking at a person in short rushes, and she also summons how he looks when he’s blazing with defiance, and so it’s almost too much when she opens her mouth and says: “Well, I– I– I don’t know about that, Jon, because I– I don’t think it’s a good idea, do you?” wavering into a rushed, determined squeak at the end.
He closes his eyes.
“You did ask,” she says, and her own voice is horribly gentle.
They sit in (relative) silence then, the top of her arm leaning solidly against his until he opens his eyes again on Basira’s return, bearing two amber tumblers and a bottle of water. Daisy glares good-naturedly at the bottle of water and Basira glares right back at her.
“You know I’m right.”
“Ugh,” says Daisy, but uncaps it all the same and drinks half in a long swallow. “Where’s Feisty McStabbypants?”
“Texting.”
“Oh.”
“Who do you reckon it is?”
“Georgie,” chorus Jon and Daisy.
Basira smirks at them. “Been discussing it have you?”
“No,” huffs Jon, then turns to Daisy. “Hold on – how do you know?”
“Deduction.”
“Right.”
“What?”
“No, look at her face,” says Daisy, nodding towards where Melanie is leaning against the bar, oblivious to the people trying to get past. “Look at her body language.” Soft, gentle, open, smiling.
“What?” asks Jon, thoroughly baffled, as Basira says:
“Ah.”
“I’m lost.”
“Never mind,” says Daisy, ignoring Basira’s soft snigger, reaching around to pat him on the shoulder. “We’ll explain another time.”
“Right.”
Melanie returns on a gust of someone else’s beer down her sleeve and a crash of fresh crisp packets, delivered with a flourish. “Right! Go on, then.”
Daisy sighs, mock-indulgent, and reaches ostentatiously for the glass Basira indicates, sniffs it, then downs it in one, grimacing. “Right! Who’s for some Bastard Boss?!”
It’s not unreasonable, Martin huffs to himself for the… sixth time? as he heads downstairs. He’s thirsty, it’s late, there’s water downstairs, it’s dark, no-one will be around anyway.
And he really is very thirsty.
So why are you thinking about heading towards the offices? And why not go to the water fountain on your floor?
Just habit of thought, he answers. That’s all!
Right.
He’s left his phone upstairs, but he’d know these corridors in any light condition, so makes it through the dark to the breakroom without incident, until he hears a soft thump in the tiny kitchen alcove and stifles a shriek, heart pounding instantly.
There’s a muffled curse and the whoosh of water running, and he relaxes enough to feel his chest loosen a little, steps forward, murmuring “Who’s there?”
“Unh?”
“J-Jon…?” he asks, without thinking.
“M-Martin? What is it?”
“Oh.” The voice is unmistakable. After all: no-one else runs his name together like that, missing the ‘i’ completely. He feels– No. No, he doesn’t. No curls of chill and heat chasing each other through his body, no fingers cramping to cup and grip. “Er, nothing, I– I just wanted some water,” he adds, firming his voice up.
This is ridiculous.
“No worries,” says the shadow, gruff and strange, and two strange, flat lights twist out of the gloom. “Here.” There’s a rustle of clothing and another gleam in front of him, and he reaches forward automatically to take a wet glass of water from–
Wait.
Here said like Hyur.
“Daisy?!”
“Yeah,” she answers shortly, by the sound of it getting out another glass for herself.
“What are– where–?” He stops. “What have you done with Jon?”
A heavy sigh. “Nothin’.” A clink and swish of water. “He’s not here. Sorry, been doin’ that all night. Not fair.”
“Doing what?”
“Voices. Impressions. Bad habit. Sorry.”
“Well,” he says. “First time for everything.”
“What?” By the quality of her voice and the reappearance of those gleaming eyes, she’s turned to face him now.
“Never heard you say ‘sorry’ before.”
She clears her throat meaningfully.
“Not without being pushed to it, anyway,” he amends.
“Right.”
“Where’ve you been?” he cringes at the sound of it – nothing like casual.
“Pub,” she says, voice shifting as she clearly settles back against the draining board.
“Oh.” Imagines camaraderie for an aching moment, the warmth and shine of it, pushes it away with practised ease.
“Yeah.”
Daisy’s tone is flat – not welcoming, but not threatening either. It’s an arms-crossed, That’s nice, sir – still need to see your ID kind of voice. And it’s all one with the flat ache that’s taken up residence in his chest (that you invited there) and he tells himself, for the uncountableth time: that’s the nature of sacrifice – it’s supposed to hurt…
“Wh-Who was–” he asks before he can stop himself and he hears a quiet huff as he cuts himself off.
“Archives only. What’s left, obviously. I think Melanie was tryin’ to get me drunk…” She gives a low, only mildly vicious chuckle
Martin realises that, until… All This, he’d never have thought to categorise things in degrees of viciousness before.
He clears his throat. “Ah’m. Right–”
“And yeah: Jon was there.”
For fuck’s sake.
Then he goes cold.
“And. Wait. And hold on – was he alright?”
“Apart from knackered as usual, yeah. Honestly, Mart–”
“No,” he says flatly, “I mean: he wasn’– he didn’t,” he lowers his volume, “hurt anyone?”
“What are you talkin’ about, Blackwood?” And there’s the snap and growl.
“He… he didn’t–? Oh Christ, why am I–?”
“Yeah, either you start makin’ sense in the next fifteen seconds or I–” and she takes a harsh breath, snapping her teeth closed on it. “Or I’m going to bed,” she finishes through them. He takes a breath and she cuts in: “Don’t have to explain anything to me, is it? We don’t work together, and we’re certainly not friends.” He tries not to cringe over that echo of his own words as she brushes past him on the way to the Archive sleeping quarters, he really does.
“L-listen–” he turns to face her. Her footsteps pause.
“No, you listen: if Jon is in danger, and I find out you knew something about it and just stammered in the dark instead of summoning up the guts to let me know? Well…” she takes a deep breath, “then we’ll have an interesting time on our hands.”
“I– I’ll have to think about it.”
“You do that,” she advises, and he can hear the short, controlled breaths, rattling slightly in the back of her throat, the smell of her hitting the back of his in turn, making his knees loosen, legs quiver to run.
I don’t have to put up with this! He thinks, fiercely. Not any more! I’m– But he still refuses to finish the thought.
“I’d finish that up if I were you,” she says, softly. “It’s getting warm.”
And with that she’s gone, and Martin drinks his water slowly, before letting himself fade back upstairs, to think.
“So, resting going well, I see.”
He glares at her and, raw as a pair of lye-scrubbed hands as he is right now, is unable to resist seeing through her eyes that he is, yes, an absolute mess, hair half-flat and half-wild, red salty swamps where his eyes peer out, face like a petulant, feverish child’s, puffy and creased.
“Stop that,” she chides, shaking her head as if to dislodge him. He withdraws, returns to Hilltop Road, watching his own skull being turned inside-out amid the cobwebs, hearing the others’ condemnation and disgust echoing through him.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” and Christ, he sounds whiny to boot. Jesus.
“That,” says Daisy, whumping down casually onto the floor beside his cot, “is because you’re not actively thinking of something else instead. Like going cold turkey.”
“That… makes sense, actually,” he admits, slowly.
“Actually,” she mock-huffs, ruffles his hair. He winces as her fingers snag a knot, and she withdraws carefully. “Okay, first thing is we fix this because fuckin’ell, Sims.”
“What?” and it’s a brave attempt at mock-grumpy, if he says so himself.
“What. Jesus. You look like– wait, you went to bed with the elastic still in?”
“I didn’t think.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, just… just sit up and stay there, alright?”
“Er. Okay…”
She shuffles around behind him, then starts plucking at snarls until he feels the tangled elastic come free. “You know,” she says, half-amused, setting it down, “you can buy actual hair ties, you know? Not fuck your hair up even more with rubber bands from your desk drawer.”
“They work!” he says, hears it more defensive than he was expecting.
“Clearly not,” she returns, fingers going back into his hair.
“What are y–?”
“Sorting the rest of this nonsense out. That alright?”
“Oh. Right. Thanks,” he adds.
He has to admit it’s quite soothing. Daisy says nothing further, just keeps picking gently at the tangles, occasionally hissing in warning of a particularly knotted strand (some of which just need to be torn apart). After a while she’s able to run her fingers all the way through, root to tip, and he knows it’s still a bit lumpy, and needs a comb and really a good wash, but, well, he finds it difficult to care, especially when her fingers return to his roots after a couple of passes through the length and the blunt tips start making circles over his scalp.
Within moments he’s half-collapsed against her chest and she chuckles. “Keep going then, shall I?”
“Oh, dear God,” he says, faintly.
“That’s a ‘yes please’.”
“Mmh!”
She continues, firm and steady, sweeping over the crown with her fingers and rolling over the base of his skull with her thumbs, keeping everything even and smooth, reasonably predictable. Each tingle that passes over his scalp and down his body undoing another knot as it goes.
After a blissful while, he manages: “I would not have had you pegged for this!”
She chokes back a laugh he doesn’t quite understand. “Well,” she drawls, “woman of many talents, me.”
“Does Basira know you can do this?”
She chuckles. “Oh, yes,” and he deliberately reins himself back from delving for the image, her wrist-deep in the other’s rarely glimpsed hair. This, here and now. This is enough.
“Right,” she says, after an uncountable time, “my back’s killing me, and my knees are too old for this, so I’m gonna stop, okay?”
“Okay,” he sighs, feeling more relaxed than he’s done in… well, he can’t work out how long, and it doesn’t matter.
“Lie down now, lovely.” She pats his shoulder.
“Hmm, I like that.”
“Welsh, see? Be thankful I didn’t call you Blossom or Blod or… Tatws Gwirion.”
“I know what that means, remember?” he murmurs, snuggling down.
“Hah. Put on some music, shall I?”
“If by ‘music’ you mean ‘The Archers’, then no. Thank you.”
“Your loss,” she returns evenly.
She must leave shortly after that, but he doesn’t hear her go.
“I can’t hear her.”
Basira huffs impatiently as he walks back from the door. “Can you see her?”
“If I could see her, I wouldn’t be talking about– oh you mean see. Right. You want me to use Beholding powers to find out whether she’s close enough yet for us to hide.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“I’d say there’s every reason.”
“Fine. Well, wouldn’t want you getting hungry after all…”
“There’s plenty to eat.”
“I didn’t mean–”
“I know.”
“Is that know or know?”
“Look–”
“Hey, would the pair of you give it a rest? You know? Just for once?”
“Sorry,” she grumbles.
“Yes, sorry, Melanie,” he mutters.
“That’s fine. Just– Just be nice, okay? It’s supposed to be a good thing.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Bloody hell, could you be any more of a miserable bastard?” she snaps.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Yeah,” says Melanie. “This is going to go really well.”
“I’m just tense, okay?” he mutters. “I’m not– This isn’t exactly…” he flails.
“Not something you’ve had training for?” she murmurs, amused.
“Well, fine, yes. No. And it’s not– Ah, forget it.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, on a descending note.
“Shame Martin couldn’t make it.”
“Did anyone ask him?”
“Well, he’d just have said no.”
“Jon!”
“What?”
Melanie rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She opens her mouth to say something – probably another reprimand – when the other door, the one behind them, opens.
“Shit.”
“Er, hi?”
They spin as one guilty archival worker.
“Where’ve you been?” asks Basira – it’s the first thing she can think of.
Daisy gives her a flat look. “Running a pointless errand. Turns out. My favourite kind. What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You all sm-seem like you’re hiding something.”
Because we are?
“I don’t suppose,” ventures Jon, slowly, “you fancy going out and coming back in again…?”
Melanie and Basira glare at him. He frowns back.
Daisy sighs.
“You know, you could just tell me what’s going on?”
They look at each other.
“Fine,” sighs Basira, and they nod, slide to one side.
“Surprise!” says Melanie.
Basira’s never seen anyone blow a party pipe sarcastically before, but Jon manages it perfectly. He then mutters ‘sorry’ and darts forward to light the candles with his gold lighter.
She looks at Daisy. Daisy is standing absolutely stock-still, and she worries, for a moment, that she’s poised to run, but the blank, mildly stunned look on her face is slowly melting upward into a smile, and Basira feels her chest loosen as the smile gets bigger and bigger.
“This your idea?” she asks as Melanie and Jon fuss over the candles, belatedly tugging paper and card away from the cake.
“Yeah. Kinda. All of us?” Oh God, she can actually feel herself blushing. Fantastic.
But it turns out that Daisy is turning an interesting shade as well, eyes soft as she’s ever seen them, which makes her blush even harder.
She finally wanders in closer to the desk, watching the shenanigans with an indulgent smile. “You remembering the last time?” she asks, on an undertone, gaze fixed on the cake as she slides in, very close now.
“Well,” she murmurs. “I am now.”
“Heh.” After a warm moment she says, a great deal louder: “Good job you didn’t try putting a candle on for each year.”
Basira closes her eyes for a long moment; no-one else she knows says the word that way: yur. She doesn’t know why it catches at her today, but there it is.
“No,” agrees Jon, “just for every decade.”
There are nine candles on the cake.
Melanie chokes back a somewhat appalled-sounding snigger. Daisy grins around at Basira. “Hi.”
“So. Happy Birthday.”
“Thanks.”