Work Text:
+ 1 +
“I’m sorry, Kate.” Jo holds her gaze despite the terror that has turned her spine to mush, her knees to water. “I’m so sorry.”
Half-illuminated by the single light overhead, Kate’s face is a mask of confusion and panic. Her voice cracks as she murmurs, “Jo?”
The car door opening is a whip crack in the cold, still air of the lorry park. Kate’s expression freezes in rictus shock as Ryan steps out of the car and slams the door closed. Jo can hear his footprints crunching on the gravel as he walks around to face them. Her breath keeps catching in her throat and she can’t seem to draw enough breath. She stares at Kate as Kate stares at Ryan, and with every step he takes Jo edges further away, until she’s standing shoulder to shoulder with Kate. Through her jacket, Jo can feel the nervous heat radiating off Kate, and she wishes with an abrupt, gut-wrenching sense of regret that she could reach out to her, make her understand how great is her regret.
Ryan sneers, “Jo wanted to give you a way out.”
Grey metal glints in the flickering light. In reflex born of a terrified childhood, Jo’s breath dries in her mouth.
The barrel of the gun doesn’t waver as he levels it at Kate. “You really should’ve put in for that transfer.”
Kate edges her body away from Jo. “You’ve only got the bottle if someone’s half drowned. Put the gun down, yeah, and stop trying to act like a big man.”
Ryan grins, eyes unreadable in the shadows. “You sure about that? Try asking John Corbett. Maneet Bindra.”
Kate rocks backwards slightly, shoulder bumping into Jo’s. She’s so warm through her coat, and the tiny, buried part of Jo’s brain that isn’t frozen in terror soaks it up like a gecko in the sun. Distantly, she wonders at Kate’s calmness: how at ease she looks, how unafraid. Kate’s hand brushes Jo’s, a telegraphed message hidden between the folds of their jackets, and she says, “You pull that trigger, there’s going to be blood and gunshot powder all over you. The cartridge and bullet could go anywhere. You’ll never find it.”
“Don’t need to. It’s workshopped. Untraceable.”
Jo swallows convulsively, but Kate’s tone barely changes as she replies, “You’ve thought of everything then, huh. Except the surveillance. AC-12 were watching the workshop. They saw you make the call to the OCG. You’re never going to escape.”
Ryan glances at Jo, eyes wide. “You knew about this?”
Minutely, Jo shakes her head.
“I don’t believe you. For Christ’s sake, Jo, you set me up!” Ryan’s face is twisted with hatred, and he swings his arm around, gun levelling at her forehead.
Jo’s heartbeat thunders through her veins. Her feet are glued to the gravel.
Beside her, Kate is trembling, although whether it’s with rage or fear Jo can’t tell. Ryan blinks, indecision written over his face, and his gaze begins to move back to Kate.
Before he can complete the movement, Kate erupts into swift, sparse motion. One hand to her hip. Both hands on guard in front of her, and in her right she cradles her gun, index finger caressing the trigger.
Kate lowers her head, a lioness about to leap, and levels her sights squarely at Ryan’s chest.
Ryan blurts, “Drop the gun!”
“Drop yours!”
“Put the gun down!”
Jo’s insides feel like they’re made of ice and queasy, sickening oil. Ryan’s eyes are manic, and his gun is still trained on her but all his paranoia is transfixed on Kate, just visible in Jo’s peripheral vision. She commits the scene to memory: Kate’s straight-backed posture, the tension in her fingers as they curl around the butt of her gun, and her expression, full of rage as she stares Ryan down. Jo feels a sob rising up in her throat, regret stronger than ever, and she swallows hard to choke it down.
“One last chance, Ryan,” Kate shouts. “One last chance!”
“Drop it!”
“Drop the fucking - ”
A gunshot cracks out, and the silence shatters.
Jo is shoved backwards by the force of the shot, all the wind knocked out of her. A sharp, spreading pain blooms in her chest, and when she reaches up to touch her turtleneck it comes away wet. She wrenches her stare away from Ryan and turns to Kate, who’s gazing at her in silent horror, reaching for her as if to catch her and she can’t quite -
Jo’s mouth shapes something that might be I’m sorry, and then her knees buckle and she topples backwards, hands flying as her head hits the gravel hard. She has time to observe Kate’s eyes as she bends over her, blue like the endless ocean and filling with tears, and then the world shimmers, clouds, and there is nothing.
+ 2 +
She comes to a little later.
Or at least…
The world is clouded in muffling smoke. Her eyes must be open, although all she can see is grey fog so dense that if she holds a hand out in front of her she can’t even make out the outline of her hand. It’s as if someone has glued cotton wool directly to her eyeballs. She can’t feel her feet or the ground or see anything of her surroundings.
A thread of panic creeps in, and it jolts her memory. She reaches up to slap one hand over her chest, but she can’t feel a thing. No turtleneck, no seeping blood, nothing. She’s invisible. Incorporeal.
Jo opens her mouth and screams.
The sound trickles out into the world and peters out about a foot from her face. She stops, out of breath - and that has to be a good thing, right? Means she still has lungs.
And if she has lungs, she must have a body. She moves what she thinks might be her hand in front of her face and glares at it, concentrating hard, remembering the tendons in the back of her hand, the freckles over her wrist, her long, blunt fingers. Something shifts in the fog, something blurry and ill-defined, but as she clenches her fingers it moves in symmetry.
After that she wanders. The fog doesn’t abate, the whole world a uniform light grey, but sometimes she thinks she can perceive shadows moving within it, as if separated from her by the cloud’s muffling embrace. She doesn’t cry out again, although the nervous, panicky tension in her own head grows steadily louder.
Eventually, the fog begins to clear. She looks down, and she can just make out her black turtleneck and blue jacket. She flexes her feet, pushing the toes of her shoes against the ground, and she can feel gravel.
Huh, she thinks. That’s new.
The fog to her right is tinged golden, as if by a streetlight. She heads towards it, hearing the gravel crunch faintly under her feet although the world still feels muffled by cotton wool. The fog never abates, not fully, but shadows appear out of the fog, and Jo sees a silhouetted arm swing abruptly up.
She hears a familiar voice cry out, “Drop the gun!”
Kate, she thinks, and sucks in a breath.
“Drop yours!”
“Put the gun down!”
She stumbles forward, both hands outstretched, focusing all her willpower to force the enfolding fog to part in front of her. It shifts, blurs, then shifts again, abating enough that three figures come into view.
Ryan, shoulders hunched with coiled rage. Kate, her whole body leaning forward like a panther about to leap. And -
Jo gulps. There she is, half-shielded from Ryan’s gun by Kate’s body. The lines of her body are taut with fear, and Jo can see the tremor in her own hands even from this distance.
“One last chance, Ryan, one last chance!”
Through the fog that separates them, Jo watches herself. She’s frozen in place, unable to move, unable to cry out or scream.
“Drop it!” Ryan yells. His gun is aimed directly at Jo, without a flicker of uncertainty or hesitation.
Kate shouts, “Drop the fucking - ”
Ryan pulls the trigger. The gunshot is a crack of thunder through the silent fog, and in the distance Jo watches herself crumple. Time slows down, and she raises one hand to her breastbone: phantom pain spreads through her chest like blood seeping across pavement.
Thunder cracks again, twice more, as Kate takes aim and shoots on reflex alone. Her shots are steady and true, and Ryan collapses, the gun skittering away from nerveless fingers across the cold gravel. In the next instance Kate catches Jo in one arm, easing her passage to the ground.
“Stay with me,” Jo thinks she hears Kate plead, and it’s the strangest sensation: she is both Jo, gazing up at Kate’s blue eyes and Jo, staring at herself through the fog as she bleeds out the endless life of the already-dead.
She takes in a single breath. The moment hangs, suspended in the street lamp’s pool of golden light, but black smog closes in and Jo’s eyes slide shut.
+ 3 +
Jo comes to, a scream already in her mouth.
The fog is back, and her surroundings are just as hazy and indistinct as they were last time. She sits up with a jerk, and realises that she can see her knees in front of her and her hands on the gravelled ground. She paws at her turtleneck, pulling it up to find cold, hazy skin underneath. If she squints she can just about make out the bloodied hole at her sternum where the bullet entered. She shudders, snatching her hand away and closing her eyes so she can breathe without wanting to gag. When she opens her eyes again the wound has disappeared and all she can see through the haze is smooth, pale skin.
“How does this…” she mumbles, and focuses on her sternum.
With an enormous effort, the wound appears again. And then older wounds appear, called back into life by whatever unearthly force animates her. Bruises bloom purple and grey against her stomach, the remnants of Tommy Hunter’s violence against her after the death of her mother. Something cracks, audible in the fog, and she grinds her teeth in abrupt pain: one rib has rebroken. Other ghostly pains in her arms and back and face, and other, more intimate places, tell her that her body remembers. It keeps the score of every piece of violence that has ever been wrought against her.
With an enormous effort she stops grinding her teeth and forces her expression to smooth out. Soon enough the damage disappears and all she’s left with is pale blank skin. Only she knows they ever existed.
But it’s a lesson: she can affect herself, even here in this strange new world. Maybe she can affect her surroundings, she thinks, and she thrusts one hand forward, feeling stupid.
To her surprise, the fog begins to fade. She focuses again, and the world shifts, morphing sickeningly around her. When the fog clears, she discovers she’s standing in the car park at Hillside Lane. The sun is bright in the midday sky, and in front of her, Kate is walking out onto the covered walkway that leads from one side of the station to the other.
Her heart sinks. She knows what happens next.
Sure enough, the station door swings open again and her old self follows Kate out. Jo shifts uncomfortably from one non-existent foot to the other: she hadn’t realised how open and devastated her expression had been.
On the walkway, Jo faces Kate’s back, and raises her voice. “Steve Arnott claimed AC-12 happened to be at the industrial site because they were tracking the OCG.”
“As well as informing you of the three possible sites, I gave that information to AC-12,” Kate says, turning around.
“Credit for not trying to insult my intelligence.”
“They’re conducting a lawful inquiry. It’s my duty to cooperate,” Kate replies, and then digs the knife in. “I’m telling you the truth, Jo, because I trust you.”
From her haunt out in the carpark, Jo watches her own face crumple. Shit, she remembers this, and wishes she didn’t. She sees herself dart a glance out to the carpark, and follows the line of her gaze: there’s Ryan, slouched in his car with the window rolled down and not even making the slightest effort to pretend he isn’t listening in.
On the walkway, her past self raises her voice. “I wouldn’t want to harm your career, Kate. It’s best if you request a transfer. I’m sure AC-12 would take you back.”
“You’ve been distant with me for days,” Kate says, softer now, and reaches a hand out to trace over the wool cuff of Jo’s jacket. “Is this personal?”
Jo’s face shutters. “I’m your senior officer. I should be distant.”
“I thought we were friends. What’s happening here?”
“So you can tell AC-12?”
“I wouldn’t tell them personal stuff.” Kate’s fingers clench around Jo’s sleeve for a single, stolen moment. Out in the carpark, Jo remembers the warmth of Kate’s hand, so near her own, and the insane, fleeting urge she’d had to twist her hand so it slotted against Kate’s. And then Kate continues, “As for requesting a transfer, I respectfully decline. I’m not leaving you.”
She brushes past Jo and heads back inside, and Jo is left staring out beyond the walkway’s horizon. Invisible in the carpark, she watches the way her face crumples with a grief that suddenly seems too private, too terrible to be witnessed, and she glances away from herself in shame. Her gaze falls on Ryan, still slouched in his car, and hot rage sparks behind her eyes. She heads towards him, the gravel crunching louder under her incorporeal feet the angrier she becomes. Just as she’s about to reach his car she feels a hand land on her shoulders and she jumps, spinning around like a skittish cat.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
The speaker is a woman, tall, with auburn hair and a sad mouth.
Too startled to be polite, Jo exclaims, “Who the fuck are you.”
“Jackie Laverty.”
Silence, while Ryan slams his car door and drives off, and then Jo swallows her surprise and blurts, “You’re dead!”
“So are you,” the woman replies, so laconic that Jo stutters an unwilling laugh.
There’s no point in remaining in the car park now that Kate has left. The fog appears again, creeping gradually closer, and when it lifts Jo discovers they’re in a well-kept garden, edged on three sides by the kind of wooden garden furniture rich people have and never use. On the low table in the middle is an abandoned bag of potato chips, and Jackie puts a hand in the bag. She tries to pick out a chip, but it falls through her fingers onto the table.
“Ghost chips,” she says sadly, and withdraws her hand.
Jo shakes her head, impatient. “You owe me some answers.”
Jackie stares at her hand, resting on the table. Her green dress swirls around her legs, stirred by an invisible breeze, and her fingers are almost translucent, as if the sunlight could shine through and dissipate them like so much morning dew. In silence, she meets Jo’s gaze and raises one hand to her throat: a light gesture at first, almost flirtatious; and then her fingers tighten and rich black-red blood spills over her hand.
“Fuck!” Jo blurts and scrambles forward, hands outstretched.
Jackie lets her hand drop, and Jo can see the wound: a straight, unhesitating slash across Jackie’s cream-pale throat, marred by blood that continues seeping. Jo swallows non-existent bile and bites her lip, imagining the pain Jackie must have experienced and her inescapable terror in the last moments of her life.
With a casual wave of her hand Jackie lets the whole gruesome mess disappear, and within seconds she’s standing in front of Jo as unharmed as before. Even the deep décolletage of her dress is unstained, as if the wound had never existed. Only her perfume remains, scenting the air: the rich bergamot and frankincense aroma of Guerlain’s Shalimar.
“That’s my story,” Jackie murmurs, and her voice is barely raspy.
Jo takes a deep breath. “The OCG?”
Jackie gives an expressive little shrug.
“Who?”
“Thugs. I didn’t know them.”
Jo presses, sickly sure she knows the answer. “Who?”
“Tommy Hunter,” Jackie replies, just as Jo’s mouth shapes the name with her.
“I’m sorry,” Jo murmurs.
It feels like a pointless gesture: she’s not sure if Jackie ever knew of Jo or her parentage. But Jackie’s gaze softens and she puts a hand on Jo’s arm and murmurs, “Not your fault.”
Jo glances up at her, taking in the faint laughter lines at her eyes and the mournful cast of her mouth. Impulsively, she stretches up and kisses Jackie on the cheek. Her lips brush soft skin and for a moment it feels as real as the brush of Kate’s hand against hers under the golden lights at Frederico’s. But Jackie is so poised, so unearthly still beneath her that Jo pulls away. Had she life, she would have flushed, bright and uncontrollable. As it is, she merely glances downwards to the place where Jackie’s hand still rests on her arm.
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” Jo whispers eventually. “I would have liked to have known you.”
Jackie’s cool, reserved expression trembles, and for a suspended heartbeat Jo glimpses the woman she must have been before the OCG tightened their grip on her: generous, loyal to a fault, and dogged by fear. Her fingers tighten on Jo’s arm and despite all rationality Jo leans closer.
“I can’t move on,” Jackie murmurs. “I’m stuck here until I resolve my unfinished business.”
“What is it?”
Jackie spins away, one hand flying to her forehead. Jo’s eyes track the movement without her brain’s conscious authority. In a lesser woman the gesture would have been melodramatic; in Jackie it is regal, tragic, and utterly compelling.
“At first I thought it was Tommy Hunter’s death,” Jackie begins, and then winces: perhaps something more tactful was required. But Jo waves an impatient hand, and quieter, she continues. “But then he died, and I remained. Everyone who ever blackmailed or terrorised me is dead, and I’m still here, still stuck.”
Jo shudders as the horror of Jackie’s words impresses itself upon her. Jackie’s been living an existential nightmare for ten years: stuck in this limbo, neither alive or fully dead, as AC-12 have picked off members of the OCG one by one and dispatched them to the unknown beyond. And Jackie, neither more nor less culpable than Jo herself, has been stranded.
Her mind’s eye is suddenly filled with the memory of Kate’s hand on her sleeve, and her strong voice echoes in Jo’s head: As for requesting a transfer, I respectfully decline.
Jo blurts, “Let me help.”
“Are you sure? I couldn’t ask…” Jackie’s blue gaze falters, as if she’s terrified even to entertain the possibility that Jo might actually mean it.
“Yeah.” Jo glances away, suddenly frightened by Jackie’s palpable hope. But then - I’m not leaving you, she remembers Kate saying, and stronger, she replies, “Yes. I’m sure.”
For a long moment Jackie’s expression barely changes. Slowly, the taut set of her mouth flickers and the stress-lines around her eyes loosen their hold. She reaches out and grips Jo’s hand, all her sinews clenching painfully although she is beginning to shimmer insubstantially. She stares at Jo as the fog begins to descend and the rich green of her dress turns dulled. Just before she is fully obscured she darts forward, whole body pressing phantom-light against Jo, and places a hurried kiss against Jo’s cheek. Jo shifts her weight and the kiss lands on the corner of her mouth for an instant before it vanishes, butterfly-fragile.
Jackie’s nearly faded by now as the fog descends like a Glasgow winter’s morning. Jo reaches out, both hands in front of her, uncaring if it looks desperate, comical. The last thing she hears is Jackie’s voice, carried by the wind: “Find me!”
When the fog lifts, Jo finds herself back at Hillside Lane. She floats through the hallways, feeling more disconnected from the world than she had before she met Jackie Laverty. She finds herself in the bathroom at one point, and wanders over to look at herself in the grimy mirror. Except, of course, there’s nothing to see in the glass: she’s nothing more than a product of her regrets and lasting rage towards the OCG: a consciousness powered by nothing more than her own will. If she were visible, she wonders, what would she look like? Would her face be flushed by the memory of Jackie’s body against her own and that tentative kiss that brushed over her mouth? Would she be smiling, or would her eyes be sad?
She gives up in disgust, and wanders back through all the well-known halls. Eventually, she reaches the kitchen. Chris is there, bent over the bench as he makes a cup of tea. She remembers the way Jackie had been able to touch her and she edges closer. He turns away to rummage in the fridge, and as soon as his back is turned she reaches out. Her hand hovers over the teabag in his cup, and she focuses all her attention on it, willing her hand stronger, more substantial. Her fingers close around the string. She raises her hand…
… and the teabag rises out of the cup, water dripping off it.
Jo imagines what it must look like to an outsider: the teabag flying by itself, hovering in midair without any visible means of support, and bursts into hysterical laughter. Thank God Chris can’t see or hear her, she thinks, dangling the dripping teabag over the bench.
But behind her, Jo hears the fridge door slam. Chris might not be able to see her, but he can see the teabag, and in a panic she loses control of her hand and the teabag drops back into the cup, splashing water against the side.
“What the fuck - ” Chris mutters. And then, incredibly, he blinks, shakes his head, and says, “Too many late nights, mate.”
He pours milk into the cup, opens the fridge door, puts the milk away, closes the door, picks up his cup and wanders off. Jo stares after him in disbelief. He saw the teabag, she’s sure of it; but the ease with which he doubted the evidence of his own eyes almost makes her doubt herself.
And then she sucks in a breath, furious with herself. She made the teabag float: she saw it, and her eyes have never lied to her.
God dammit, she thinks, I can do this!
She stretches out a hand towards the dish towel on the rail, and oh - there it goes, floating up, up towards the ceiling. She can feel her rage powering her, running like blood through her veins, and there’s an instant where she thinks, I could tear this whole damn place down.
That’s… that’s a bad thought, though, and she drags her mind away from the delightful mental image of tossing Buckells away from his desk like so much filthy jetsam. But she feels stronger, more real, and after a while she slinks out of the kitchen, wandering back to the rest of the station.
Soon enough, night falls. Fog closes in, darker, denser, and she knows the end is drawing near. She thinks of Kate, remembering that she had arrived at the lorry park by car. When the fog lifts, she sees in front of her the grey concrete wall that faces the station car park.
Behind her, a door slams. She turns around, feeling sick to her stomach, and sees Kate’s black Audi gleaming in the twilight. Kate’s footsteps are loud on the concrete as she walks towards her car. She’s bouncing her keys absentmindedly in one hand as she stares at her phone with the other, and Jo remembers that they’d planned that she would text Kate the address where they were supposedly going to meet up.
Where she was going to lure Kate to her death.
Kate opens the car door and slides in. Jo blinks, and fast as thought she finds herself sitting in the back seat, right behind Kate, staring at the back of her head. Barely, she resists the urge to reach out to Kate, to slip an incorporeal hand in hers and say, I’m sorry. I wish it were me.
They drive as the sun sets and night falls over the city. Like all coppers, Jo’s senses have always been alive to the city’s split and beating heart: its calm, innocent veneer by day, which obscures the river of crime and filth running through its streets by night. And as the twilight deepens, the well-known streets turn grey and impenetrable, shadowed by fear and the surefire knowledge of what lies ahead.
Kate pulls over outside Frederico’s. Jo glances out the back window: the warm golden lights look like a foretaste of heaven, and she bites her lip, wishing with all she has that Kate would put the car into park and wait for Jo inside.
But no: Kate pulls out her phone and dials. She takes a deep breath and says, “Hi, sorry Jo. Just coming in now.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Faintly, Jo hears herself say, “Sorry, Kate. Change of plan. I don’t feel comfortable meeting somewhere so public.”
No, Jo thinks. Don’t -
“I’ve just got here,” Kate replies. “I’m happy to wait.”
“I’ll text you an address when I think of somewhere better,” Jo says on the other end of the line. There’s an agonised pause, and then she murmurs, “Kate? Still there?”
Kate pauses. Invisible in the seat behind her, Jo touches the back of the driver’s seat with fingers as solid as she dares, wishing she could reach out to Kate properly.
Kate glances in her rear view mirror. Both side mirrors. Straight ahead. And then she mumbles, “Yeah, ok. Text me.”
She hangs up. Through the gap between the car door and the side of her seat Jo sees her fingers trace over the holster that carries her Glock. She glances in her rear view mirror again, a quick, reflexive action, and then heaves a sigh. Her phone buzzes, and then they’re on the road again.
At the lorry park, Kate takes out her phone. Jo can hear Steve’s tinny voice as he says, “Kate.”
“I just wondered if the surveillance team had reported anything suspicious on Jo’s obs?”
“Surveillance just got pulled.”
“What?” Kate asks, and pauses fiddling with her phone to glance around wildly. “Why?”
“AC-12’s being cut back and merged,” Steve replies. “Carmichael’s taking command on the Chief Constable’s orders, and we just learned he could’ve been a beneficiary of Gail Vella’s murder.”
Kate blurts, “Jesus Christ!”
Jo sucks in a gulp of air she doesn’t need, feeling as if puzzle pieces are finally falling into place. So Carmichael took command of AC-12 towards the very end? And Osborne stood to benefit from Vella’s murder? She’d always suspected he was in the OCG’s pocket.
She tunes back in just in time to hear as a woman’s stern voice from Kate’s phone. It says, “Can you hand me your phone. That’s an order.” A pause, and then, begrudgingly, “Thank you.”
Kate glances around, eyeing up the rear view mirror. Jo can see the tension in her eyes and the worried set of her mouth.
“DI Fleming,” the woman says, louder now. “DCS Carmichael. On the orders of the Chief Constable I’m now SIO on the anticorruption inquiry into Operation Lighthouse. What’s your sit rep?”
Jo swallows rising panic in her throat. Kate remains silent. And then she pulls the phone from her ear, ends the call and throws the phone against the seat beside her.
A deep breath. Two.
And then Jo’s car drives in behind Kate, boxing her car in.
Kate swears under her breath and fiddles with her phone. Unseen, Jo glances behind her: she can see herself framed in the windscreen of her car, looking pale and drawn as she listens to the instructions which Ryan is giving her from his unseen position in her back seat. Jo turns around and tries to reach out to Kate, but her hand goes straight through the back of the seat. She can feel the stuffing and springs that make up the seat, an unpleasant, foamy sensation, and she shudders and withdraws her hand just as Kate opens the door and steps out.
Left behind in Kate’s car, Jo slips through the door to hover just behind her. The fog lurks in the edge of her vision like an incipient migraine and she can’t quite feel the ground beneath her, but she bites her lip and watches as her past self opens the car door and steps out.
“Let’s not hang around here, Jo. I’d much rather be inside, somewhere warm with a glass of wine,” Kate says, and Jo thinks desperately, please, no, don’t be flippant.
Ryan slithers into view, gun in hand and slimy smirk on his face. It’s a foregone conclusion, a self-fulfilling prophecy: Jo knows the ending and it’s never good, there’s no way back -
“Drop the gun!”
“Drop yours!”
“One last chance, Ryan, one last - ”
The gunshot rings out, a crack of thunder in the silent air of the lorry park, and Jo feels pain spreading through her chest. She staggers, unbalanced and mute, as her past self glances in disbelief down at the blood spreading across her turtleneck. A beat, two, and then she stumbles as a second and third gunshot crackles into the night. Across the carpark, Ryan slumps to the ground. Jo remains upright a second longer before she too crumples, the gravel cold against her cheek. Just out of reach, Kate turns to her, eyes wide, but she’s already on the ground, already dying, and she stretches a hand out and Kate takes a giant step forward, mouth shaping a word that might be her name and the fog closes in and she -
+ 4 +
She comes to with a visceral shock. She’s surrounded by fog again, but she’s on her feet before she realises she’s moved, and the ground feels real and hard beneath her soles.
She appears at Hillside Lane before she can talk herself out of it. It’s unclear when she’s arrived, but it must be either before or after Kate’s conversation with her past self on the walkway, because when she appears in the carpark it’s empty, and Jackie is nowhere to be seen. She heads for the doorway anyway, and finds herself inside her own office. Papers are spread all over the desk and two old coffee cups are stacked on the drawers by her chair. Vaguely, she thinks she remembers this: an unusually stressful day, close to the end, when Kate disappeared for part of the day and returned looking drawn and grey-faced.
She wanders into the bullpen. The light from the high windows above streams in an unbroken line down to the ground, and she watches as she puts a foot into one well of light. The sun on the floor doesn’t change, but her foot feels less chilly; less, well… Less dead. She lets herself move fully into the light and shakes herself out, sunbathing like a great invisible gecko.
She’s only disturbed when Buckells walks through her on his way through the bullpen. It doesn’t seem to damage her, except she recoils, convinced that his disgusting cologne is going to linger everywhere she goes, even in death. After that she moves back to the side of the room, where nobody can disturb her.
After a while Kate walks in. Jo’s attention snaps to her like a moth to a flame, and she watches as Kate picks up her bag and jacket and stalks out. Something in Kate’s taut jaw and silver-frost eyes triggers a memory deep in Jo’s mind, and she hurries after, slipping through the door just as it slams shut behind Kate.
Once again, Jo finds herself sitting invisibly in Kate’s car as she peels out of the Hillside Lane parking lot. This time, Jo sits in the passenger’s seat, where she watches apprehension steal over Kate’s expression as she drives. They turn onto the motorway towards the centre of town, and Jo stares past Kate through the driver’s side window, watching as the suburbs speed by.
Kate can’t hear her; Jo knows that. But Jo still has the absurd urge to talk to her, to tell her everything she couldn’t say in life. She murmurs, “I’m sorry, Kate. I was never - ”
But before she can finish the thought she realises that the car is slowing down. A flush of wild hope flickers through her: maybe Kate heard her. But she glances out the window to discover that they’ve arrived at AC-12’s headquarters.
Taking the elevator up to AC-12’s floor is not something she thought she’d willingly do a second time. The first time had been bad enough. And yet she shadows Kate all the way into the building, through the lobby, into the elevator with its mirrored interior where she casts not even the faintest glimmer of a shadow, and into the lion’s lair itself.
Jo knows of Ted Hastings by reputation, but it’s another thing entirely to meet him in the flesh, so to speak. The first time she met him she was terrified, internally frozen and desperately trying not to show it. And when he yelled at her during her interview, insisting that she was bent, that there was more going on that she wasn’t admitting, she’d realised that he was another man just like every other man she’d ever met. Loud and ultimately impotent, using his voice and physical heft to intimidate her.
This time, well. Maybe that’s one good thing about being dead.
He extends his hand to Kate with an impatient kind of familiarity. Kate hesitates for a fraction of a second before taking his hand and shaking it, once, twice, and away. Wordlessly, Hastings gestures towards the back of the AC-12 bullpen.
Kate moves, and Jo follows.
She slips into the enclosed meeting room just as Hastings closes the door. She’s still ephemeral, nothing more than a wee ghostie trailing behind Kate, and if half her non-existent body has to move through the wooden door as Hastings shuts it, well. Nobody else sees.
But if she had a body, she’d stumble into Kate, who has stopped dead partway into the room. Steve stands in front of her, small and solitary behind the table that dominates the majority of the room.
“Hi,” Steve says, and cuts his eyes away from Kate.
Silence. Hands in pockets, Kate shifts her weight onto her right foot.
Then she shifts back and says, “Hi.”
“Well,” Hastings cuts in. “Now we’ve got the introductions out of the way, let’s get started.”
“Kate, we have some developments in the Davidson inquiry,” Steve begins, and both Jo and Kate turn to stare at him.
Kate hisses, “I told you last night, whatever you’re planning, I won’t be involved.”
Last night… Jo’s eyes widen. One night, very close to the end, Kate had disappeared early from the station. She’d arrived at Jo’s house much later, takeaways in hand, and she’d seemed distracted all night, though she’d refused to tell Jo what had happened.
Kate turns to Hastings. “I told him yesterday. If he hasn’t passed that on to you, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t change anything. What you’re planning is immoral and despicable, and I won’t be party to - ”
“Sit down,” Hastings barks.
Propelled by some latent reflex, Kate sits. Jo shrinks back against the wall, filled with fear at Hastings’ tone even now when she is finally, truly, untouchable.
“You know this is an opportunity we can’t afford to pass up,” Steve says. “Davidson could lead us to the fourth man. We can’t afford to ignore this just because of your little crush.”
Jo blinks and glances at Kate, who’s blushed bright red, but remains silent.
Hastings clears his throat. “We need you to feed us the inside track on Davidson. You’ll be undercover, just like before, and when this is all over you can come right back to AC-12: full benefits, long-service leave, the whole lot.”
Kate stares at him. “You want me to rat on my gaffer? On Jo?”
It’s insane, Jo knows this: it’s taking hope to its most tenuous conclusion, but she thinks that Kate places special emphasis on Jo, as if ratting out her gaffer is absurd enough but to expect her to rat out Jo is a step too far.
“You’re no rat if she’s bent,” Steve replies.
“It’s Jo.”
Steve shrugs. “And?”
“It’s Jo,” Kate repeats, frustration clear in her voice.
“Whatever she’s involved with, if you’re seen to be involved, it could go badly for you,” Hastings says loudly. “If you work with us, you’d be protected.”
Jo heaves a deep, unneeded sigh. She’d suspected, but this is confirmation: at the end of the day, there’s really no difference between anticorruption and any of the other crooks she’d ever worked for.
But Kate looks devastated: incredulously, she says, “Are you blackmailing me, sir?”
“No, Kate,” he snaps. “Jesus. I’m just pointing out what’s in your own best interests.”
Kate leans forward, both hands braced on the edge of her chair, but pauses. Then, slowly: “I don’t know what’s going on, sir. I don’t know when you lost any sense of rationality. But I know Jo’s not at fault. She’s trapped, and I’m going to find out what’s happened and I’m going to fix it.”
Without another word, she stands up, pulls the door open and walks out.
Steve, Hastings and Jo all gawp at the door as it swings shut.
“We’ve lost her, sir,” Steve says eventually.
“We’re not losing Davidson,” Hastings replied. “Keep obs on her. She’ll slip up eventually, and when she does we’ll - ”
Jo doesn’t stick around to hear the rest: she slips through the door, grimacing as she passes through the wood, and chases after Kate.
She finds Kate sitting in her car, head leaning against the steering wheel. As Jo slides into the passenger seat she hears Kate muttering under her breath, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Jo just sits there. When Kate raises her head her expression is desperately worried, but try as Jo might, she can’t see even a trace of regret.
Unwilllingly, at the back of her mind, Jo thinks, What was that about Kate having a crush?
And then the fog descends.
When it lifts, it’s night, and the street lamp casts a golden pool of light across the gravel of the car park. They’re all there: Kate, Jo, and Ryan, trapped in their own little wax tableau that repeats over and over and fucking over again.
Jo’s still thinking about Kate’s blush, and so she misses the lightning moment when Kate pulls out her gun. But she doesn’t miss Ryan’s panicked shout: “Drop the gun!”
Kate: “Drop yours!”
“Drop the fucking gun!”
Jo steps closer. She can hear her feet crunching against the gravel, and from Ryan’s wild glance around, she thinks the others can hear it too.
“One last chance, Ryan, one last chance!”
Jo reaches out. She tries to grab Ryan’s arm, tries to pull his aim away, but she’s so insubstantial her hand keeps slipping through his ghastly flesh. If she could just get a grip, she could -
The gun fires. She yelps in surprise. Pain spreads once again through her chest, and in the distance she watches herself collapse to the ground.
Beside her, Kate seems frozen. Jo falls onto the gravel with a dull thump, and the gravel digs into her back with a distant sort of pain. Between one breath and the next she seems to reunite with her body, staring up at Kate beside her instead of standing beside Ryan, and she fights to suppress a sudden spike of fear.
In front of them, Ryan is backlit by the street lamp behind him, throwing his grimace into shadows. But the light catches and glints off the barrel of his gun, still held stiffly in front of him. As Jo watches, it wavers once and re-aims, staring directly at Kate. And then there’s an almighty crackle of gunfire, and Kate shouts, one hand flying to her side as black-red blood seeps against her jumper. Her trigger finger twitches, on reflex more than anything else, and Ryan is knocked off his feet by the two bullets that punch into his chest.
Jo stares up at Kate from the ground. Kate presses her hand more firmly to her ribs as a look of faint surprise passes over her face. Jo can hear her rasping gasps. Every sinew in Jo’s body is screaming, desperate to go to Kate, but she can’t move, stuck sprawling uselessly on the ground.
Kate staggers. Her expression of blank surprise doesn’t change. And then she falls, first to her knees and then, inevitably, forwards.
Jo screams, “Kate!”
Too late, always too late, she’s able to move, and she propels herself towards Kate, reaching out to roll her onto her back. Kate’s eyes are already glazed, but with a huge, visible, effort she twists her head an inch to gaze at Jo.
A flicker of a smile passes over her lips.
Jo is distantly aware of tears pouring down her face, falling like winter rain onto Kate’s bloodstained jumper. Kate’s hand twitches, and Jo reaches for her, twisting their fingers together and holding on so tightly she can almost feel the pain. Kate sucks in a breath. Her lips part, and Jo leans so close she can feel the soft puffs of air as she exhales.
Kate whispers, “Not your… fault.”
Her hand in Jo’s goes limp. When Jo finally gets the courage to look up, her eyes are open, but they stare unseeing at the endless stars.
Rage, vicious like nothing Jo’s ever felt before, lances through her. In the distance, she hears the faint whine of sirens. But before she can scream, unheard, unseen, useless: everything turns black.
+ 5 +
Jo is sucking in a breath as soon as she awakes. For a single second she lets herself feel the whirling panic that’s rising up inside of her, and then she squashes it all back down and launches herself into motion. She reaches out with all her senses, both hands in front of her, and searches for sad eyes, a wry mouth, and the ghostly feeling of lips on her cheek.
And there she is: Jackie Laverty. She turns as Jo appears, mouth twisting up in a smile, and then her expression turns shocked as Jo launches towards her, grabbing her by both shoulders and slamming her against the nearest wall.
They’re both corporeal enough for it to hurt, unexpectedly and thrillingly, and Jo feels all the air rush out of Jackie’s lungs in a huff of breath. She tightens her grip on Jackie’s shoulders in case she tries to throw her off, but after a first instinctual moment of struggle Jackie relaxes, head slipping back against the grey concrete wall as her habitual cool returns. Jo can almost taste her perfume, bergamot and sandalwood and musk all running together and warming the air.
Jo screams, “Tell me what to do!”
Beneath her hands, Jackie gives a tiny shrug. “There’s nothing you can do, my darling. It’s over.”
“Kate died in front of me!” Jo’s hands tighten on Jackie’s shoulders, digging in so she can feel cold, ghostly sinews and taut muscle. She blurts, “I have to save her. Tell me how to save her.”
Jackie’s mouth twists, compassionate and terrible. “You can’t. You couldn’t even save yourself, Jo. What makes you think you can save her?”
Somehow her words penetrate. Jo takes a step back and lets her hands fall. Carefully, she asks, “Who did you fail to save?”
Jackie’s face crumples, first into rage and then slowly, inevitably, into shame. “I should never have got him involved,” she mumbles eventually, wrapping both arms around herself.
“Who?”
“Tony Gates.” She meets Jo’s gaze, eyes wild. “He was a good man. An honest man, and I… I dragged him into the OCG because I was too frightened to do the right thing. He hated me at the end, and I don’t blame him. I should’ve been braver.”
Jo lets herself breathe out slowly. “You were blackmailed, weren’t you?”
Jackie gives a startled nod, and Jo continues, “The OCG wanted your warehouses to launder goods and money through, and you agreed because they had information on you that could ruin you. And you thought if you played along, they’d go away, but they never do because I knew Tommy Hunter, knew him better than you ever could, and he was a vicious bastard who didn’t deserve the term human. You didn’t do everything right, but neither did I. I knew where the bodies were buried. I knew what Tommy Hunter and Ryan Pilkington and Miroslav Minkowicz and the others were doing - not all of it, but enough of it to put them all away for a very long time, if I’d had the guts - and I said nothing.”
Jo pauses, tears sliding down her face. Jackie steps closer, tears welling up in her own eyes, and distantly Jo notes that it makes her look regal and tragic, like a queen out of some Renaissance painting.
“I was scared, Jackie, more scared than I ever knew was possible, and that’s why I never said anything,” Jo murmurs, and takes a shaky breath as Jackie’s gentle fingers touch her jaw, brush the tears from her cheeks. “And, you know, my death isn’t a tragedy. My life was dangerous, in more ways than one, and it was longer than I ever expected it to be. It is what it is. But Kate…”
She swallows around a sudden lump in her throat. “Kate deserves so much more than to bleed out in a dirty lorry park.”
Jackie’s eyes have turned soft with a terrible kind of knowing. She says, “You love her, don’t you.”
Jo breathes in. Out. Silently, she nods.
“I know she has feelings for you too.”
“Don’t,” Jo hisses, a reflexive, hopeless denial. “Don’t say that. You can’t know.”
Jackie takes a step closer. Her green dress billows around her legs in a nonexistent breeze, stirring a faint taste of Shalimar in the air, and for a moment the sadness in her eyes is overwhelming.
“I’ve watched her, all these years.” Jackie puts a hand lightly on Jo’s sleeve. “I know what she was like before she met you. It was as if she was given a new chance at life. You are deeply important to her.”
The feeling of renewed hope in Jo’s chest is almost unbearable. Eventually, she meets Jackie’s eyes. She whispers, “I’m going to end this,” and black descends.
The fog lifts, and Jo finds herself standing outside Steve Arnott’s office at AC-12. His door is heavy wood and shut tight, but she can still hear raised voices from inside: Hastings’ Irish brogue, a lighter male voice that must be Steve’s, and… a woman’s voice. Not Kate.
She slips through the door.
Steve is backed against a filing cabinet, arms folded. Against the perpendicular wall stands Hastings, with his characteristic scowl and bushy eyebrows. Both look furious, and despite herself Jo shivers a little.
On the other side of the office is a tall woman with pale blonde hair slicked back into a bun so precise Jo feels momentarily inadequate. This must be Patricia Carmichael, she thinks: she’s never met the woman before but she knows her by repute as a ferocious investigator, relentless in her pursuit of her quarry.
“I’m convinced Davidson is the key to all of this,” Steve says, and Jo stares at him in horror.
“AC-12 has failed to convince me that Davidson has any actionable intelligence,” Carmichael replies, waving a sheaf of papers. “I am reluctant to waste further time - ”
“Waste!” Hastings interjects. “No actionable intelligence!? Ma’am, Davidson is key to the whole enterprise!”
Carmichael levels him with a flat gaze. “And where is your evidence?”
“Let us bring her back in for questioning.” Steve’s voice is softer, more conciliatory. “We’ll have another crack at her. She knows more than she’s saying, I know she does.”
Carmichael sighs. “We’ll ‘have another crack at her’? No, Arnott. My officers don’t talk like that, and they certainly don’t conduct investigations like this.”
Steve flushes an ugly red and opens his mouth, but Carmichael continues talking. “With respect, you and DCI Hastings have become fixated on Davidson. I want you to throw the net wider. Consider all the options.”
Hastings and Steve both lapse into silence. Steve shifts from one foot to the other and darts a glance at Hastings out the side of his eye. Hastings’ face is puce, his eyebrows drawn, and the thin line of his mouth is tight as if he’s struggling to keep his anger contained.
Abruptly, Jo thinks: old dogs, and feels a spike of pity for him. His career must be over, if Carmichael’s taking over, and he must know it. Makes him dangerous, unpredictable; but with Carmichael in play she and Kate might have a chance…
Hastings opens his mouth. Steve jumps in, words tumbling out: “Ma’am, if you’d excuse us…”
“Alright, Arnott,” Carmichael says, and places the sheaf of papers she’s still holding gently on the table.
Steve and Hastings file out, but Jo hangs around unseen in the room just long enough to see Carmichael close her eyes and let a long breath out through her nose. Devoid of motion, her face looks drawn and wan; there are fine lines of tension by her mouth. Jo stares at her, shaken by her palpable exhaustion.
From down the hall, Hastings shouts, “I don’t give a shit, son!”
Carmichael sighs again, and snatches the papers up before walking out. Jo follows her as far as the corridor, half-planning to see what she does next; but through the window of the conference room at the end of the corridor she spots Steve, face reddened, and she changes her mind.
Inside the room Jo finds Hastings, Steve, and a girl with dark curly hair and the most twee plaid coat Jo’s ever seen. She says, “The evidence that Jo Davidson is some sort of OCG mastermind is tenuous at best.” A long pause. “Sir.”
Hastings’ face turns more puce, and he starts, “Chloe…”
But she shoots a quick glance at Steve and continues, “With respect, Davidson isn’t comparable to, say, Minkowicz or Biggeloe. The evidence we have on her is purely circumstantial. Never mind where we got that evidence from.”
Steve asks, “Jatri, you mean?”
“We’re accepting evidence from ex-lovers now without properly considering whether she has an axe to grind?” Chloe shakes her head. “That’s not how I pictured AC-12.”
“And I suppose it’s all strictly by the book, catching bent coppers, is it?” Hastings glowers. “Fill out everything in triplicate, make nice with the evidence boys?”
“No, sir, but it’s making sure cases aren’t thrown out on avoidable technicalities,” Chloe replies, and then adds: “it’s about making sure we pursue the right person for the right reason.”
Jo watches as Steve shifts uncomfortably from side to side. She narrows her eyes: that struck a nerve.
Chloe continues, “Be honest, Steve, did AC-12’s focus on Roz Huntley or John Corbett materially assist in finding bent coppers?”
“You weren’t there,” Hastings hisses, and lurches forward. “You don't know what it was like.”
“No, sir, I don’t.” Chloe straightens her spine, almost imperceptibly. “But I’m the only one here who has the objectivity to understand what we’re dealing with.”
Quietly, Steve asks, “What are we dealing with?”
“We have an accusation against a police officer with a good record. The accusation was made by a person who cannot possibly be objective and clearly has the motivation to ruin Davidson’s career. We should be very cautious before taking anything Jatri says at face value.”
Farida… Jo feels sick to her stomach. How could she do this? How did Jo not realise? In her distress she sinks partway through the door, sagging into the wood before she pulls herself out again. What a damn nightmare.
Distantly, she hears Chloe continue, “And at least one person AC-12 respects has argued the whole way through that Davidson is clean.”
Steve murmurs, “Kate…”
“Fleming picked her side when she left AC-12,” Hastings says. “She knows the score.”
“We shouldn’t treat ex-AC-12 officers like that,” Chloe replies. “They deserve better.”
Hastings barks, “Aye, well, we all deserve better, but you don’t see me - ”
“Chloe, a word.” Steve launches to his feet and tugs at her elbow. She goes easily enough, following him to the door and through, leaving Hastings standing in the middle of the room. His shoulders sag. Alone, he looks defeated despite his heft and physical presence.
Jo feels an unexpected spark of pity: for him, for the dregs of his career, for the obvious love he has for AC-12. There’s nothing she can do about it, though, and unless she can find a way to stop him, now, his actions are going to destroy Kate. She turns away from him, slipping through the door to find Steve and Chloe.
Who are standing right outside, arguing in low tones.
“I trust Kate,” Chloe says urgently.
“No,” Steve replies, “I get that. I just… she’s got a blind spot for Davidson. I don’t trust that.”
A long moment, and then Chloe asks softly, “Is there history there I should know about?”
Steve barks out a laugh. “No.”
Chloe raises an eyebrow.
“Well, maybe on my end,” he admits, cheeks pinking. “For a little while, years ago. But we’re mates, that’s it.”
Chloe tucks a curl behind her ears, looks a little wistful. Then, voice threaded with steel: “Do you trust her?”
He pauses, staring into the middle distance.
Jo holds her breath.
Steve murmurs, “Yeah…” and then, louder, “Yes, I trust her.”
Jo breathes out, and the fog descends.
Much later, she watches as Ryan pulls a pair of black jeans and a black hoodie out of his wardrobe. His flat is unkempt: he lives alone in a basement flat off the Holborn Road, in an area lined with pawn shops and twenty-four hour chip shops. The floors of the takeaway joints are greasy and sticky, and the faces of their proprietors are grim, hardbitten into reflexive scowls.
A box of tikka marsala lies half-eaten on Ryan’s bed, a fork stabbed carelessly into a lump of chicken gristle. Instead of watching, invisible and unseen, as Ryan dresses, Jo stares at the box of tikka marsala, the half-empty bottle of Coke Zero on the bedside table and the rumpled sheets. The wardrobe door slams shut. A drawer slides open, loud in the silent room, and she turns around in time to glimpse Ryan picking up a gun.
Her heartbeat thunders in her ears. Surely he can hear it, although she knows she’s dead and gone, knows her heart has stopped and any idea that anything she does can affect the real world is fanciful, lunatic -
In her mind’s eye, she has a sudden vision of a teabag rising dripping out of a cup.
Jo lurches towards him and wraps her hand around the barrel just as he slides the gun into his back pocket. Her hand slips through stiff denim. He lets go and she tugs, mightily, with all her strength, panting with effort. He moves away and she loses hold of the gun, stumbling back, hair falling over her face. She closes in on him again; reaches out; grasps the gun and pulls -
The butt of his gun rises from his pocket in a series of jerks. She can’t quite summon the strength to pull it out all the way, let alone to destroy it. He twists around, whole body convulsing, and she lets go of the gun.
“What the fuck,” he mutters, expression baffled and angry, and pats at his pocket, sliding the gun back into place.
She falls back, discouraged. He must have felt it slide out of his pocket, and he’ll be more careful than ever now. There’s nothing she can do except follow him out of the bedroom, through the tiny living area and down the hallway. She watches as he pulls the front door closed, locking it with a single deadbolt. God, but he’s cocky, or secure enough in his position that a single lock is enough to let him sleep soundly. Jo takes a deep breath, squashing down her anger, and follows him to his car, sliding in to the back seat as he drives off.
The night unfolds, just as she remembers it. Jo is waiting in the underpass as they drive up, and she pulls open the passenger door and gets in. She looks terrified, sick to her stomach, and from the back seat Jo’s gut lurches in sympathy.
Ryan says, “You know the plan?”
Quietly, Jo says, “Yes.”
“Go over it again.”
“When she calls,” in the passenger seat, Jo stops herself. “When she calls, I pick up. I tell her there’s been a change of plan. Then I - ”
A phone rings. She freezes. In the back seat, Jo bites her lip, hard enough she can almost feel it.
“Well?” Ryan barks.
Slowly, eyes darting around as if searching for an escape route, Jo pulls out her phone. Swipes right. Takes a deep breath.
“Hullo?”
“Hi, sorry Jo, just coming in now.” Kate’s voice fills the car, warm and so beloved, and in the back seat Jo feels her eyes fill with tears.
There’s a long, agonised pause from the front seat. Jo remembers what happens next: Ryan’s right hand moves behind him as he pulls the gun out from his back pocket and sets it on his lap, pointing towards Jo. In the front seat, she swallows convulsively, eyes frozen on the gun.
Slowly, she says, “Sorry, Kate. Change of plan. Don’t feel comfortable meeting somewhere so public.”
From the back seat, Jo marvels: she sounds almost normal, without any hint of the strangled terror she remembers feeling.
“I’ve just got here,” Kate replies breezily. “I’m happy to wait.”
“I’ll text you an address when I think of somewhere better,” Jo says. Her voice cracks on the last word, obvious, telltale, and Kate… god bless her, maybe Kate realises something is amiss: there’s a long, slow silence before Jo murmurs, “Kate? Are you still there?”
Jo remembers sitting invisible in the back seat behind Kate at that moment: the way Kate had glanced in her rear view mirror, her side mirrors, straight ahead; taking darting, quick glimpses like a small rabbit smelling a fox. Maybe Kate had known something was wrong, after all. Maybe she had truly been trying to save Jo. The realisation loosens something in Jo’s chest.
“Yeah,” Kate replies eventually. “Okay. Text me?”
Slowly, Jo ends the call and lowers her phone to her lap. She glares at Ryan, hatred in her eyes, and spits, “There. I’ve done what you asked. Now let me go.”
Incongruously, Ryan giggles, high and mirthless. And then his voice lowers as he hisses, “Fat fucking chance. Give me the phone.”
Jo shakes her head.
His arm moves: the barrel of the gun rises up, up, up, pointing directly at Jo’s face. Jo sucks in a breath and freezes still. Her wide eyes dart left, right, making unseen eye contact with herself as she sits invisibly in the back seat. She looks terrified.
Hopeless.
She raises both hands, holding the phone in her right, and slowly - slowly - hands it over. Ryan takes it, spinning it carelessly between his fingers, and lowers the gun. As soon as it’s out of her face Jo’s expression crumples into despair and her eyes fill with tears.
“Right,” Ryan says, sounding almost gleeful. “Let’s go.”
When they arrive at the lorry park Kate is already standing by her car. Jo knows how this goes: knows that Kate has just phoned Steve, has just hung up on Carmichael. But the rest are oblivious: Jo steps reluctantly out of the passenger seat and walks a few paces to stand in front of Kate.
“I’m sorry,” she says miserably. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Left behind in the car, Jo reaches through the stuffing of the driver’s seat and tries to pull the gun out of Ryan’s pocket again. She can’t get a grip, useless even in death, and this time Ryan doesn’t even seem to notice. He opens the car door, the crack sounding loud in the quiet lorry park, and steps out.
Frantic, Jo slips out the car door and darts to Kate’s side. She’s staring at Ryan, looking angry but somehow unsurprised, and Jo makes herself as solid as she can and pushes Kate’s shoulder, hard. Kate’s jacket bleeds warmth against Jo’s spectral hands, and, incredibly, she can feel its rough twill under her fingers.
Kate rocks to one side, almost imperceptibly, as if she’s moving her weight from one foot to the other. Beside her, Jo watches as her eyes widen; it’s the only hint she gives that this is anything more than a casual movement. Jo holds her breath.
And then Kate rocks back, planting her feet more firmly on the ground and taking two deliberate steps away.
Jo’s stomach twists. She mumbles, “No, please,” and listens as her voice cracks.
“You’ve only got the bottle if someone’s half drowned,” Kate says, voice sharp. Jo glances left to see Ryan’s gun raised, pointing directly at Kate, who continues, “Put the gun down, yeah, and stop trying to act like a big man.”
As fast as spirit, Jo dashes over to herself, standing there uselessly, twin tear tracks trickling down her face. She tries to grab her own hand and pull it up - to do what, she’s not sure - but she’s in a hurry, she can’t get a grasp. Jo’s hand raises an inch from her side, hovers… and flops limply back down.
Unseen and unheard, she hisses, “Fuck!”
At the same time, Kate says, “AC-12 were watching the workshop. They saw you make the call to the OCG. You’ll never escape.”
The tiny movement must have caught Ryan’s eye: he turns towards Jo, eyes wide, and blurts, “You knew about this?”
Jo shakes her head.
“I don’t believe you.” Ryan’s face twists with hatred, and he swings his arm around, levelling the gun at Jo’s forehead. “For Christ’s sake, you set me up!”
Dead and losing her last chance at life, Jo sobs, just once, letting the grief only she can hear echo around the empty lot. She edges towards Ryan: maybe she can pull his gun arm down. Maybe she can empty his gun of bullets. Maybe she can kill him, somehow, and his death might put an end to this nightmare. She wraps both hands around his, latched onto the gun, and drags with all her strength.
The gun doesn’t move, but his eyelids flicker.
It’s the millisecond Kate needs: in a blur of sparse movement she reaches into her hip holster and pulls out her own gun, aiming it unflinchingly at Ryan’s head.
From her position by Ryan, Jo gazes at Kate, memorising her beloved features; the hard set of her mouth, her narrowed eyes. Realisation strikes her suddenly: Kate’s never lied to her. Never abandoned her. Never demanded more than she can give. And Kate’s here, now, still fighting for her, even when the cost might be her own life. Her lungs fill with fragile hope. Maybe there is a chance. Maybe, in some distant future, Kate might lov -
There’s a faint smell of Shalimar. Something green moves in the wind like an anemone in the corner of her vision, and Jo glances up. Jackie stands still as death, just outside their entwined circle. She looks just as regal, just as poised as before, but traces of dried blood mar her throat and décolletage, a gruesome reminder of the secret she shared with Jo. She looks at Jo, and smiles.
Jo barks, “Make this stop!”
Jackie murmurs, “Do something.”
“What?” Jo gazes at her, feeling the weight of her failure pressing down on her like earth over her grave, and finally cracks. She pleads, “Tell me how to end this, Jackie, please. I can’t do this any more. I can’t let Kate do this any more. I love her, and I think she might - ”
She breaks off on a sob.
Jackie smiles again. She reaches out, traces an incorporeal hand gently over Jo’s cheek, and murmurs, “I know she does. Do what you failed to do the first time.”
Jo stares at her.
Ryan blurts, “Drop the gun!”
“Drop yours!”
“Put the gun down!”
Jo casts a wild glance around and says, “No, please, no, not - ”
“One last chance, Ryan,” Kate shouts. Her trigger finger inches closer. “One last chance!”
Ryan’s face is twisted, monstrous, as he shouts, “Drop it!”
Nothing Jo has done has worked. It’s the end. Might as well give up now. And yet… she catches sight of herself, standing mute next to Kate, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. A sudden, wild supposition comes into her mind, already fully-formed, and before she can think the plan through she’s standing next to herself, slipping inside her own meat and sinew, simple and possessory because she belongs here, this perfect, comfortable body. It’s hers, hers alone: it always has been.
Jo Davidson opens her mouth and screams: “No!!”
Ryan’s hand shakes in surprise. His manic gaze lands on Jo as he fires, almost an involuntary twitch of his finger. But his eyes are no longer on Kate, and she’s less shocked by Jo’s scream: her eyes are trained on him, lioness-still, and she fires a millisecond after he does.
Two shots.
Two bullets.
Both bury themselves deep in his chest, burrowing through wool and polyester and skin and muscle, and then he’s toppling backwards, eyes wide, one hand reaching up to claw at the torn hole in his sweater.
Jo slips out of herself. Miraculously, she’s fine: Ryan’s bullet flew wide, hitting a concrete wall behind them. But time feels woozy again, shadowy, and she glances sharply up at Jackie and says, voice stronger, “This ends now. I’ll make sure of it.”
Jackie’s eyes fill with something like relief. The world is fading, but perhaps she begins to lighten around the edges, glowing as if from the inside out…
The world turns black.
Jo staggers to one side, away from Ryan’s body sprawled over the concrete. Improbably, she’s back: whole and unharmed in her own body, and she’s never been so grateful to have it. Her oesophagus gives a violent heave and she leans over, hands on knees, and retches. Something metallic skitters away over the gravel and Jo looks sideways: Kate has kicked Ryan’s gun away from him and is bending over him, two fingers on his neck.
Kate glances back at her and shakes her head. No pulse, then. Jo stands up, feeling somehow lighter, and smiles as Kate walks back to her, holstering her gun.
“You alright?” Kate asks. “You sort of… faded out for a moment there.”
“Yeah,” Jo replies, and she knows her expression is open and pleased. “Yeah. I’m back now.”
Neither says anything for a long moment. Jo lets herself drink in the sight of Kate in front of her, and eventually she reaches out touching Kate’s sleeve and murmuring, “He forced me to call you, to change the address. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain.”
Kate’s eyes are shockingly blue under the lights. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat and twists her arm so she’s grasping Jo’s sleeve too.
“I wanted to tell you,” Jo says, “every day. Every moment.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was,” Jo takes a deep breath, “so afraid. I’ve been afraid every damn day of my whole life, Kate.”
Kate inches closer and doesn’t take her eyes off Jo. She whispers, “And now?”
Jo bites her lip, feeling the blood rush intoxicatingly to the surface. She glances down as she pulls her arm away, taking both of Kate’s hands in hers. “I love you. I want to be brave for that.”
Kate’s eyes fill with tears and she nods silently. She gasps, turning her gaze to the night sky and sniffing before she replies, “Yes. Yes, Jo, please.”
Jo takes the remaining step closer, close enough to reach out, to put one hand against Kate’s cheek and draw her in. They’re a heartbeat away from kissing when the night air is torn in two by sirens.
“Police!” Kate blurts and jerks away. She grabs Jo’s hand and pulls her towards the car, stopping only to pick up Ryan’s gun. “Take this. You might need it.”
“No,” Jo says. She pulls Kate back towards her. “This ends here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you trust me?”
Kate stares at her, eyes narrowed. And then, abruptly, like she’s throwing herself into the unknown, she says, “Yes, I do. Of course I trust you, Jo. I love you.”
Jo smiles, pleased and finally certain. Her shoulders loosen as she says, hurriedly, “Then here’s the plan. Steve and Chloe believe us. Carmichael isn’t interested in prosecuting me, not if she can get actionable information on the OCG some other way. And I’m going to give it to her. I’m going to testify against the OCG and I’ll confirm that you shot Ryan in self-defence.”
“Are you serious?” Kate pauses. “Wait, how do you know all this?”
Jo laughs. “That’s a very long story. Let’s just say I’ve had enough time to think about it.”
The sirens are approaching. Ryan’s body, and with it the last, best hopes of the OCG, lie sprawled on cold gravel a few feet away. Above them, the night sky glimmers; stars shiver in the distance. Behind her, Jo thinks she feels a gentle breeze at her back, the air lit up with a faint breath of Guerlain’s Shalimar. And beside her, Kate’s blue eyes are luminous, her smile infinite and true. Ahead of them, the first police cars pull into the lorry park, and she leans forward, closing her eyes and kissing Kate with all her joy, all her relief, all her love.
When they part, Kate takes Jo’s hand in hers, and together they turn to face their future.