Feedback and comments are very welcome. Email Sue at wood_bee@yahoo.co.uk.  Please note that due to work commitments, replies may be delayed or not possible. Apologies in advance.

Tracks of My Tears

by Sue

people say

I'm the life of the party

'cause I tell a joke or two

although I might be laughing

loud and hearty

deep inside I'm blue

Part I: Buchanan

Cassidy's flat was untouched again. This was the eighteenth morning in a row Buchanan had 'accidentally' found himself in the neighbourhood with the key in his pocket, but as he picked up the gas bill and Reader's Digest mailshot from the doormat it was already apparent to him that nothing had changed. The flat smelled cold, unlived-in, haunted perhaps by the ghosts of past indiscretions. Shuddering, he closed the front door behind him and wandered into the small, cluttered living-room.

Unless there were mice he didn't know about, the flat was utterly devoid of living beings. Three days after Cassidy's mysterious disappearance Buchanan had bundled the caged birds, Fred and Ginger, into the back of the BMW and driven them round to Inky's, where he had met with a frosty reception and a brick wall of non-co-operation. It was obvious Inky knew where Cassidy was; obvious, too, that he had no intention of divulging that information to Guy Buchanan. Inky had glaringly implied that whatever was the matter in Cassidy's life it was all Buchanan's fault - an accusation that would be hard to refute - and had given Guy to understand that wild horses could not drag the secret of Cassidy's location from him. It had been a bitter and uncharitable meeting, and Buchanan had driven away from it feeling like some sort of pariah. The prickings of a conscience he had long denied owning tortured him from then forward. Cassidy was hurt; he could have prevented it, but he had not. It seemed to him that Inky's scorn was at least partially justified.

Going through the routine of looking after the flat, clearing the mail, emptying the fridge of perishables, taking the birds to Inky's, Buchanan hadn't even stopped to ask himself what he was doing, and why. He felt a considerable obligation to Cassidy, and the promise he had made Joe Deegan - to take care of Harry - was still strong in the forefront of his mind. Fine job he was making of it so far.

Joe Deegan. Joe had been the cause of much of the distress Cassidy had endured in recent weeks - and Cassidy was still unaware of two vital pieces of information about Joe that had come to Buchanan's knowledge. If there was any way of keeping these two facts from the younger man, Buchanan was just going to go on doing so; Harry had suffered enough.

It had almost broken Cassidy to learn that Joe was capable of levelling a gun at him and pulling the trigger when he knew Joe only as the partner who had taught him all the tricks of his trade. Buchanan had an additional fact at his fingertips - that Joe was Cassidy's natural father. Even knowing that Joe was a cunning old conman with a lifelong record of deceit, Buchanan hadn't sought for one moment to question that assertion; Joe had said that it was so, and he had known that the man was sincere. However untrustworthy Joe had proved in other areas of his life, his feelings towards his son had been - up until the showdown at the airfield, at least - simple and honest and reliable.

Seeing Cassidy bathed in self-pity over the loss of someone who had proved himself so false had turned Buchanan's stomach. He had always known that Harry had a tendency to give his heart unwisely - Fleur was a classic example of that, and so was Daisy, her successor. He knew, too, of the stubborn optimism that kept Harry battering away at the unassailable edifice that was Michael Cassidy, the man he believed to be his father. Cassidy Senior's only mercy towards his supposed son lay in the fact that he had never yet thrown his parentage in his face; that would have entailed them having a conversation, and between them for years there had been nothing but silence.

Buchanan sat down on the sofa, staring up at the gaudy poster for 'San Francisco' on the opposite wall. FLAMING ROMANCE! THE GIGANTIC SPECTACLE OF A CITY DESTROYED! read the legend above the stars' portraits. Cassidy was a dreamer, the last of the great romantics, an idealist who saw the best in everybody. It made for a massive vulnerability Buchanan had done his best to correct, helping Cassidy to armour himself against a world that was all pain.

But Cassidy had turned to him for comfort; needing Joe, needing his father, needing someone to love him, he'd turned to Guy Buchanan - here in this room, on this sofa. The conversation had been drowsily incoherent, ranging from appalling jokes to Cassidy's philosophy of life, but without warning it had strayed into unfamiliar territory and blundered about between emotions alarmingly. He'd be telling himself lies if he didn't admit that he had almost encouraged it, unwittingly pushing Cassidy to see how far he would go, playing dangerous games with Cassidy's psyche. Pretending ignorance, he had brought Cassidy to the point of no return and then frozen him out brutally. Despising himself for what he had done, he let the memory play through his mind with no detail omitted. Cassidy had scrambled over, breath heavy with whisky fumes, leaned down over him and without preamble drawn him into an embrace and kissed him very gently on the mouth. The gentleness, the intoxication, the powerful spell of the moment had been such that without thinking he had accepted the kiss and momentarily revelled in it before twisting away and making a hurried exit.

Cassidy's kiss has been both wonderful and hateful, unexpected and so carefully pre-arranged. The ambiguity of his feelings stung him; how was it possible to love someone for what they were and yet hate them for exposing your weaknesses? He had no answers, and suspected there were none. The futile search for them was part of the reason for this arid daily trek to Cassidy's empty flat. He'd come so close to weakening, to accepting the kiss and all that went with it ... but it would have been disaster to do so, when his feelings about Cassidy were still in this half-formed state. Besides, Cassidy needed someone safe, someone trustworthy, someone reliable; Guy Buchanan was none of those things, and he knew it.

He covered his face with his upturned hands in a classic gesture of grief and bewilderment. Cassidy would never speak to him again, in all probability; he didn't have any moral claim on his partner after that brutal and unexplained rejection, and his lover-like haunting of Cassidy's empty home seemed to him in the last degree pathetic and spineless. Thinking he was acting in Cassidy's interests, he'd nevertheless managed to ruin everything; and as if that hadn't been enough there had been Ken Vickers and his ten thousand quid to worry about as well. A pocketful of stones and a rope under Blackfriars Bridge had suddenly seemed like a very attractive proposition.

"Oh, Ken ... how are you?" Opening the door to an unexpected visitor two days after the débâcle at Cassidy's flat, Buchanan had been unreasonably optimistic of seeing his partner waiting outside. Ken was something of a disappointment, but it was obviously a matter of business. He stepped aside and Ken entered the hall. "Problems?" he asked, idly.

"Yeah, problems. Buchanan, you're a piece of shit, you know that?"

Since this opinion coincided fairly closely with Buchanan's own assessment of himself, he didn't feel inclined to disagree. "Have a drink, Ken," he said, mildly. "Scotch?"

"Anyfink."

Urbanely Buchanan dispensed the Scotch and gestured Ken to a seat on a chintz-covered sofa. The long-haired, ear-ringed figure in jeans, desert boots, torn sheepskin jacket and 'Mozza' teeshirt was completely incongruous against the old-world gentility of Buchanan's apartment - except that by breeding and upbringing Ken Vickers was probably a more fitting occupant for it than Buchanan himself.

"So what's up?" Buchanan asked, easing the knees of his trousers as he sat himself in an armchair opposite Ken.

Ken regarded him steadily. "That bloke you wanted took to Ireland. Who was he?"

"Now, come on, Ken; your fee was 'no questions asked', remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. Fly him to Waterford, leave him there, forget you ever saw him. You didn't say anything about disposin' of a body, Guy."

"What?"

"He was dead before we got off the ground, I reckon - only I didn't find out till a lot later. Looked to me like a bullet wound in the neck." Ken had been in the Falklands; if he said it was a bullet wound, it was a bullet wound.

"He was fine when we left him, Ken."

"I know that, Guy. That's why I'm sittin' here calmly on your sofa drinkin' your Scotch instead of breakin' your bleedin' neck. Now, what the fuck happened to him?"

"He was being followed; a man had been paid to kill him. We promised to get him out of England, that's all. What ... er, what did you do with the body?"

"Dropped him in the sea," Ken responded casually. Life and death were all one to Ken after the Battle of Goose Green. "Have you and bloody Harry got me mixed up with the IRA, Guy? 'Cause I warn you, there's a price ticket on this one."

"I thought there might be. Look, all I know is the man's name was Todd - or so he said - and he seemed to be English. He was posing as a Special Branch officer. He wanted Joe for something he'd done in America; I don't think we'll have any more trouble from him. But you've been put to a lot of inconvenience, Ken. You'd better tell me how you see it."

Ken took a long swallow of his drink. "I see it with four noughts after it, Guy. Disposing of inconvenient bodies don't come cheap, especially when the bloody IRA's involved. Ten thou, or I get overcome by alcohol in some copper's favourite pub - and oh, dear, who'd have thought it?"

"Ten thousand." Suddenly Guy looked older than his fifty-five years; centuries older. "It'll take a week, Ken. Come back next Saturday night."

"Okay. No funny stuff, though, mate; none of Inky's masterpieces, nothing traceable."

"No funny stuff, Ken, I promise. And in return ... "

"It's a one-off, Guy; I'm not out to stitch you up. One dead body, one payment. Mind, you leave the country without paying your bill and you'd better have good medical insurance, know what I mean?"

"Oh, I think we understand each other, Ken. Another drink?"

"Nah. I'm due down the Garden in 'alf an hour - gotta get back and change."

"The Garden?"

"Covent Garden. Royal Opra'ouse. Magic Flute - me favourite."

"Of course. Enjoy yourself, Ken; I'll see you in a week's time."

Buchanan closed the door on his departing visitor in a state of complete mental disarray. Joe Deegan was Cassidy's father. Joe Deegan was dead. Ken and his ten thousand quid seemed like irrelevances after those two facts. Whatever it cost, he would protect Cassidy from more hurt; everything else between them would just have to wait.

Mind seething, Buchanan sat down to try and pull together some sort of scheme that would net ten thousand pounds.

The ringing of the telephone startled him from his reminiscence. Only half aware of what he was doing, he picked the phone up and gave Cassidy's number.

"Who is that?" a delightful Irish voice asked him, abruptly. A delightful Irish female voice. "Is Harry there?"

"Uh, no, he isn't. I'm Guy Buchanan, a friend of his. Can I help?"

"Buchanan? I've heard a lot about you. I'm Liz Doran. I'm Harry's sister. Do you know where I can reach him, Guy? It's urgent."

"To be perfectly honest, Liz, I don't. Harry left town a couple of weeks ago and he didn't say where he was going."

"A couple of weeks. That would explain it. I've been trying to ring him for two days solid - and I wrote him a letter. Dada's in hospital again - he collapsed at the weekend and they had to put him on a ventilator. I don't think he's got long, Guy. Can you try and find Harry and get him to come home as soon as possible?"

Buchanan was already reaching for the notebook and pen he kept in his inner jacket pocket. "Give me a number where I can reach you," he said, decisively. "I'll do what I can and call you back."

Liz supplied the number and was about to ring off when she stopped herself. "Guy? Is Harry all right?"

Set on edge by the question, Buchanan was startled to find himself on the defensive. "All right? Why shouldn't he be?"

"Nothing. Only it's not like him not to get in touch. Has he anything on his mind?"

"Well, er ... " Inventing desperately, Buchanan hit with unconscious irony on what seemed the most innocuous explanation. "He's got a new girlfriend," he said, blithely. "Anna, Andrea, something like that. You know what he's like when he's in love, Liz - no common sense. Probably went off for a dirty weekend and just forgot to get out of bed."

"Probably," Liz agreed, with a mild laugh. "Stay in touch, Guy," she added, her tone altering subtly. "I need to try one last time to get Harry and Dada to see sense; I don't want Dada to die still hating him, you know?" Her words were a body-blow. He barely managed to respond to her gentle 'goodbye', and found himself still holding the phone some moments later while an insistent electronic voice repeated 'the other party has cleared' in revoltingly cheerful tones. He slammed the receiver down in annoyance. Cassidy's sister had no conception that in entrusting him with this little chore she'd given him enough information to pull Cassidy's life to shreds. Harry would get over Guy's betrayal sooner or later - but could he survive learning Joe Deegan's secret? Could he ever be reconciled to Michael Cassidy? Was a dead father who loved one better than a living father who hated one? Was Buchanan supposed to decide? How could he play God with his best friend's life? If this was a punishment of some sort for spurning Cassidy's advances he supposed he just about deserved it; well, that was fine, he could take it. Harry couldn't. It was just more bloody grief; grief he would have given anything to be able to avert.

Pulling himself together he fumbled on the mantelpiece for the letter with the Irish stamp he'd dropped behind the clock yesterday morning, drew it out and stuffed it into his pocket. At least having something to do made him feel a little better about things. Even if Cassidy never spoke to him again there was still one thing he could do to try and put matters right between them. It was a fierce determination not to be balked again that drove him out of the flat, up the stairs, and out onto the road to Inky's.

you're the permanent one

Part II: Cassidy

It had rained all night; earlier a wild, window-rattling storm had swirled up that suited Cassidy's mood perfectly, but now it had subsided into a constant hammering of heavy drops onto ground already sodden and Cassidy's anger had muted to a dull, repetitious misery drumming into him without cease. It was all Guy Buchanan's bloody selfish fault, driving him away from something that had been good and could have been better and into a nightmare of unhealed emotional wounds, a wilderness landscape of broken promises. Guy and he could really have been something to one another - something more than partners, friends, and a limitless nuisance, at any rate. He had never really hoped for that, fond of Guy though he was, until just recently; recently there had been something about Guy that had drawn him in closer, a need in the older man seeming to reach out towards him ... but it had been illusory, he now understood. He had been conned by that devil-may-care charm, the twinkling smile, the stay-with-me-till-morning eyes. Harry Cassidy, one of the smartest young conmen Ireland had ever produced, had been hooked and reeled in and then thrown away like every single one of Buchanan's many women, and the knowledge of his own stupidity, far more than that of Guy's disdain for him, had burned right through him like a laser.

Propped up against the pillow on one half of the double bed, he squinted uneasily at the alarm clock. It was four-thirty in the morning, not a time he generally enjoyed unless he had been drinking all night. The clock would be going off in about half an hour, and there was little point in trying to get back to sleep - even if he wasn't convinced it was a lost cause. Already Fraser was beginning to stir sleepily; usually he was awake before the bell rang and reached out to switch it off, out of consideration for Cassidy's nerves. It made little difference; Cassidy would get up and make coffee for him while Fraser showered, relishing the semblance of settled domestic order produced by the routine they had fallen into so rapidly. Everything about the situation felt right and familiar and comfortable, and he could happily have made this house his home and Fraser his permanent partner if it hadn't been for the spectre of Guy Buchanan looming between them.

It had all been going so well, too, up until the day Joe Deegan walked back into his life. The partnership with Buchanan, despite its precarious beginning, was maturing nicely. They were at home in one another's company, close friends already, a finely balanced team who were good at what they did. Even the first stirrings of sexual attraction towards Guy hadn't, at the time, seemed unduly alarming. Harry had to admit it had surprised him to discover he wanted his partner quite so much; his male lovers were usually young, fair-haired and transient. He told himself that was because he had no intention of getting involved in a long-term relationship with any man, and that when he settled down he would do so with a woman. Somewhere along the line, though, his priorities had shifted; he had begun to long for a future that involved Guy Buchanan as a permanent and faithful lover. He knew it wasn't exactly Guy's style; not only was the word 'faithful' absent from his vocabulary but also, whatever his ethics may have been, sexually he was absolutely and irrevocably straight. Cassidy had known that all along. He'd told himself a million times over. But he hadn't listened to himself. He'd made one desperate, disastrous play for Guy's affections - and lost everything.

"Declan? Are you okay, love?" Fraser Hurley's soft Scots accent intruded on his bitter recriminations, and Cassidy snapped back to the unsatisfactory reality of the present.

"Sorry, Fray; did I wake you?" He dropped an affectionate hand onto Hurley's warm, bare shoulder. Fraser was the only part of his life that was any consolation to him at the moment, but even there he resented the fact that he was living a lie; Fray knew him as Declan Magee, not as Harry Cassidy - and that, too, when he thought about it, was Buchanan's fault. Fraser sat up beside him. "You're restless," he commented, without criticism.

Cassidy shrugged wearily. "Just getting used to sleeping here," he said, with caution. "It's all still a bit new, you know?"

"Aye, I know. Remember, Dec, I meant what I said; no strings attached. You stay as long as you like, and you go when you like. It's good to have you here - it's been more than two years since I lived with anybody - but I know you're just passing through. I wish you weren't, but I understand."

Harry wrapped an arm around him and hugged him. "I wish I wasn't," he murmured, wistfully. "I know I could be happy with you, Fraser. Maybe if I ever get myself sorted out..."

"I won't hold my breath!" Fraser laughed, indulgently. "Want to ride out with us this morning? You could exercise 'Frenchman' - he could do with a gallop. Then I'll cook us a huge breakfast and we'll have a lazy day, what d'you say?"

"By a lazy day ... I take it you mean we spend the day in bed?" Cassidy asked, lifting an eyebrow towards his lover.

Fraser wriggled away from him and climbed out of bed, then leaned back and kissed his cheek. "It's Sunday," he said, happily. "Doesn't everybody?"

"And me a good Catholic and you a good Calvinist," chided Cassidy as Fraser headed towards the shower.

He had known Fraser Hurley a year or more - since they'd operated Buchanan's masterpiece of a scam against Phil Kirby, the school bully from his hideous childhood. Fraser was the trainer entrusted with Kirby's horse 'Prince of Power', and had unwittingly been involved in Buchanan's plot to sell Kirby a supposed son of the vanished classic winner 'Shergar'. Harry had been attracted to Fraser even at the time, and had let Fraser know it, and had received encouragement that if it hadn't been for the immediate business of the scam he would happily have followed up on. Unfortunately their subsequent con - against Ronnie and Reggie Stitch - had made it necessary to leave the country for a short while, and he hadn't seen Fraser again for months. Then it had been a phone call out of the blue followed by a snatched late-night visit to Fraser's quiet country home, neither of them under any illusions what was intended; unlike Cassidy, Fraser was exclusively gay. They had ended up in bed together with the minimum of preliminaries and afterwards parted with genuine regret, Fraser's open invitation to return whenever he chose and stay as long as he wished echoing at the back of Cassidy's mind throughout the turbulent months that followed. It was no use. Even that first night with Fraser, he'd seen Guy Buchanan whenever he closed his eyes. Making love to Fraser, he had fantasised Guy. The night Joe Deegan left England, Cassidy had tried to turn those fantasies into reality.

" ... and the girl said ... "

" ... 'yeth, and I'm only thixtheen'. My God, Cassidy, you'll have to do better than that!" Buchanan's wry delivery dispatched the enfeebled punchline of the joke with scant respect for its great age. "That one's got whiskers on it, man."

Cassidy took another swig of Jameson's. "Oh, I know," he said, wistfully. "I'm not exactly in the party mood, you know, Guy. I really thought Joe cared about me. I can't believe I was ever that naïve."

"This isn't a party. It's a wake." Joe Deegan had gone home to Ireland to die from the insidious disease that was already gnawing away at his insides. He'd been hale and hearty enough when they parted from him, but they expected never to see him again.

"It's a wake all right," Cassidy agreed. "But Joe the Lion the way I knew him died a long time ago. The Joe I knew back in those days would never have pulled a gun on me; he treated me like I was his own son - ah, and I couldn't have loved him more if I was!"

"I know." Buchanan was sprawled out on his back on Cassidy's sofa, Cassidy sitting propped up on the floor somewhere in the region of his knees and the bottle on the coffee table within easy reach of both of them. Something undemanding and classical spooled out of a tapedeck in the background, Mozart probably. Cassidy's taste was lowbrow, but Buchanan was educating him. Buchanan had a hand over his eyes, trying to shield himself from the memory of Joe Deegan shooting at Cassidy. "That kind of betrayal hurts," he said, thoughtfully.

"It does. Joe was my partner, Guy. I loved him."

Buchanan's eyes opened sharply as he heard the unspoken correlation between the two statements.

"Yes," he said, non-committally.

"You don't know what I mean," Cassidy muttered under his breath, inhaling a further long draught of whisky. This was the third night in a row he had set out to drink himself into a stupor on Joe's behalf. Buchanan watched him uneasily, troubled by a sudden instinct of protectiveness towards his younger partner.

"You're just too vulnerable emotionally," he said, with a critical tone. "People break your heart; look at Fleur ... she turned you upside-down. Grow an extra skin, Cassidy - you need a hide like a rhinoceros in this game."

"It's not a game!" Cassidy protested, automatically. "It's my life, for crying out loud! I loved Fleur. You don't know what love is, Buchanan."

"You think I've never been in love? You're wrong there, Cassidy. I loved a girl once..."

"Ach, girls!" his partner rejoined impatiently. "Girls aren't all there is to life, you know. Jeezus, Buchanan, you're living in the nineteenth century! Girls! Ye gods ... " He trailed off, his mind a bewildering tangle in which a clear thought had formed only fleetingly and then been chased away by the fumes of alcohol.

"What ... what else is there?" Guy's tone was carefully guarded, but Harry was too mazed to notice it.

"What else? There are two sexes on this planet, Guy - did you never notice that?"

"Girls ... and us."

"Girls and us, Buchanan, you're a genius."

"You're trying to tell me something," Buchanan surmised, cursing the whisky that was slowing his mental processes. He hadn't taken anything like as much as Cassidy - one of them needed to keep a clear head, at least - but he was tired as well, and he knew his brain wasn't functioning at its usual speed.

"I'm trying to tell you something," Cassidy repeated, dully. "You promised Joe we'd take care of each other. If I didn't know you better, I'd say it sounded as if you meant it."

"I meant it. It's my duty to look after you, Harry; you're my partner."

"Oh, yeah. Your duty. And what if I wanted to be more than a partner, eh?"

"More? I don't understand."

"Oh, Mr Innocent! I don't want you to see me as a duty, Buchanan - I want you to care about me!"

"Well ... I do ... "

"Not the way I care about you, though. Not the same way."

Hand suddenly unsteady, Guy set aside the whisky tumbler. "I think you'd better explain that remark," he said, calmly.

Cassidy chose to ignore the ice that dripped from his partner's words. Although his posture was outwardly relaxed and composed and he had scarcely moved, Buchanan's eyes had narrowed as he strove to fight off the cotton-wool clouds of intoxication and bring his brain back on line.

"You can have a demonstration, if you like," Cassidy told him recklessly, putting his glass down on the floor and moving closer. He hauled himself up onto his knees and leaned over Buchanan, bending to kiss him on the mouth with complete and unmistakeable conviction. Buchanan's hands lifted to his shoulders and Cassidy's heart sang; instinctively he deepened the kiss, drawing strength and courage from the unexpected warmth of the response. Buchanan's grip tightened and became almost brutally fierce, pushing Cassidy back and away, his face unaltered and unreadable. Without a word Buchanan disentangled himself from Cassidy's embrace, got to his feet, and retrieved his jacket from the back of the sofa. He had a hand on the doorhandle before Cassidy could force himself to speak.

"Guy ... "

Buchanan showed no sign of having heard him. He left the room, and Cassidy was conscious of each one of his footfalls as he climbed the stairs, and the slamming of the front door was the slamming of the prison cell door closing with appalling finality on a sentence of solitary confinement for life.

"Guy ... ?" he repeated once, hopelessly, letting his need for the man leach away into a pool of whisky and self-pity, accepting his harsh fate with sick resignation and preparing himself to make the supreme effort to hate Guy Buchanan until the day he died.

Riding back from the gallops that morning, Fraser stayed close by Cassidy's side. The affair between the trainer and the supposed professional gambler was accepted as given by the jockeys, lads and yard staff, many of whom had gravitated into Fraser's employment simply because it was known that a tolerant attitude towards gay relationships prevailed at Hurley's. More importantly, although Fraser had not been in business for himself very long, his staff cared a great deal about his happiness; if Declan Magee was what made him happy, then Declan Magee was welcome in their midst.

"Dec, something's worrying you," Fraser accused, settling Cassidy at the table in the huge kitchen as he began to prepare breakfast. "I've never seen you enjoy a ride less - and you certainly don't seem in any mood for a day of unbridled passion."

"Unbridled passion!" Cassidy laughed, mirthlessly. "That's a good one."

"Seriously, Declan."

"Seriously, Fraser. Listen, I can't tell you exactly what it is, only ... you remember that friend of Kirby's, Leslie Drover?"

"Drover?" Buchanan had used his real name in his brief dealings with Fraser. "Tall, fifty-something, moustache? I remember."

"What did you think of him?"

Fraser sat down opposite Cassidy, the jar of instant coffee and the spoon he held remaining in his hands, forgotten, as he considered his answer.

"Didn't see much of him, but I liked him better than Kirby. At least Drover had decent manners; Kirby's money is the only attractive thing about him."

"Right. Now, suppose Drover was like us, Fray; would he be the sort of man you could fall in love with?"

The question caught Fraser open-mouthed and without a thought in his head. "Drover?"

"Leslie Drover," Cassidy confirmed, dully.

"Hmmm. Well, personally, I don't happen to like moustaches. Without that ... he's got a lot of class, Declan. Are you telling me you fell for him?"

Cassidy winced at the gentleness in Fraser's tone. It was the last thing he needed, the last thing he felt he deserved. "Maybe a bit," he conceded, painfully. "But he's straight. I found out that much, at least."

"Found it out the hard way, I should think. Wouldn't have hurt so much otherwise. No, don't give me the details," Fraser told him, his grey eyes sympathetic. "I can imagine. You bumped into him again and you made a play for him; Christ, Declan, that's dangerous - he could have been anybody. He might have a wife and four kids, for all you know."

The words hit home. Cassidy regarded him with a mortally-wounded expression which supplied all the details his conversation had omitted. Self-disgust was eloquent on his features.

"Dec, I knew you'd come here looking for somewhere to hide; you made that clear when you arrived. You're here on your own terms, love. I'm not Leslie bloody Drover and I don't want to be - but if you need Fraser Hurley, even on a temporary basis, you've got him."

"I do, Fray, I do. Right now, I need you a hell of a lot. And I don't want to lie to you, but there's a lot of things I just can't tell you."

"Fair enough. I like having you here, Declan. I could fall in love with you, if you'd let me - but I don't think you will. Let's just take every day as it comes, shall we?"

He got up and walked around the table, his arms closing around Cassidy's shoulders. Cassidy turned to him and buried his face in the front of Fraser's sweater, barely aware of the hands that stroked through his hair, barely conscious of the world slowly spinning around him as Fraser's gentle, considerate caress soothed away the memories, drove the horrible fascination of his need for Guy Buchanan into some dark recess where it could no longer hurt him, cared for him as he had wanted to care for Guy, long ago in that other life before he became sane.

with you

Part III: Buchanan and Cassidy

Nobody in their right mind would buy socks like that, Buchanan thought, idly examining a purple pair with white rabbit clocks. They looked like the sort of thing thrusting young City types were given by their girlfriends - along with luminous Y-fronts and chocolate in obscene shapes. Nobody had any taste any more. The shop assistant was regarding him with unconcealed suspicion, and he realised with something of a start that he'd been staring at these particularly disgusting objects for quite some time with his brain in neutral. It was difficult to find things to occupy one's mind in an airport terminal; once one had tasted the coffee and read the daily paper - strikes, wars, royal scandals and football results - the various concession shops were all that remained. Since he wasn't interested in looking at plastic Aberdeen terriers containing miniature bottles of Scotch, he had wandered in to look through the socks and ties until it was time to go and haunt the check-in desk for the next flight to Dublin.

He had been in the room when Inky telephoned Cassidy, asking for him under the name of Declan Magee and passing the message with suitable reassurances. He'd bribed the forger to keep his name out of it, to imply that Inky himself had found Liz Doran's letter on a routine trip to the flat. He thought he'd caught the sound of Cassidy's voice wafting from the receiver a couple of times, but having stationed himself at the far end of the room, head bowed and arms folded, while the conversation took place he had managed to convince himself he was imagining things. There was nothing in the world he wanted quite as much as he wanted to see Cassidy again, and somehow he had managed to restrain himself from tearing the phone out of Inky's hand and telling the man so in no uncertain terms. Cassidy had enough problems. He wasn't going to add to them.

Nevertheless he wasn't going to leave things to chance, either. He was hanging around in the terminal building at Heathrow, knowing well exactly which flight Cassidy was likely to make for - one he'd taken frequently in the past. The call had gone through first thing in the morning; the regular mid-afternoon service would get him to Dublin in time for evening visiting at the hospital. Just to be on the safe side, Buchanan had been here since mid-morning. The security guards didn't seem terribly impressed with him, but that was their worry. He had other things on his mind.

Drifting towards the main entrance, he paused again to examine the bookstall where half an hour earlier he'd managed not to buy the latest Jackie Collins. Now he made a serious attempt not to buy a lavishly illustrated gardening book. He was engrossed in a photograph of Sissinghurt when the name 'Declan' floated across his consciousness and he glanced up sharply. A man a few years younger than himself and about six inches shorter, fair-haired turning grey at the temples, dressed in cord trousers, grey pullover, Barbour jacket and brogues was talking animatedly to someone half-concealed by the postcard stand, and Buchanan's heart lurched sideways with sickening suddenness. A moment's thought identified Fraser Hurley, the likeable young racehorse trainer whom he'd met first at Kempton Park. He lifted the book higher to conceal as much of his face as possible, and tuned in to the conversation.

"Look, Fraser, I don't know if I'll be back or not. Things could change, you know." Unmistakeably Cassidy's voice. Buchanan fought back an urge to charge across, knock the postcard stand out of the way, and shake some sense into Cassidy.

"I won't hold my breath while I'm waiting," Hurley chided gently. "It's been great, Declan, I'll really miss you - but I don't think it was meant to last. It isn't just Drover, either, it's something else."

"Fray, I've lied to you. Oh, not about Drover, not any of that. And not about my father, that's real enough. I lied about myself. Not to hurt you, though; I did it to protect myself from somebody else."

"That's okay, love, I understand. You're in a nasty business. Listen, the racing game's not exactly squeaky-clean, is it? I took you at face value, Dec, and I liked what I saw. We were good together. If you ever want to come back, you'll find me waiting."

"Fraser ... my real name is Harry Cassidy." The words came out in a rush, a damburst of conscience, an almost breathless revelation. Buchanan could have wept, but Hurley's gently affectionate expression didn't alter.

"Glad to know you, Harry. In the biblical sense, of course."

"Oh, Fray ... "

"You'd better go, love. Your flight's been called. Phone me from Ireland and let me know how the old man is; I'll be thinking about you." Cassidy stepped away. Buchanan caught sight of his back view moving away from the bookstall, and shrunk deeper into what little cover there was behind the cash-desk. Then Cassidy turned back and Buchanan flinched at the sight of his face, pale and concerned but directed only at Fraser Hurley.

"I love you, Fray," Cassidy said, softly.

Hurley hugged him. "No you don't," he replied, with certainty. "I wish you did, Harry. Bye, now, love. Take good care of yourself." And without a trace of embarrassment he kissed Cassidy gently on the cheek and released him. Cassidy cast him a look of distress, then seemed to return to the real world from some half-life. He didn't speak to Fraser again, but his eyes as he turned away were brimming. Without looking back, he headed straight for the gate and joined the queue.

Deliberately Fraser turned away, and his grey gaze flickered over the bookstall's brightly-displayed contents to fall unexpectedly on the tall, dark-clad figure by the cash-desk whose troubled brown eyes met his without falter. For a long moment Fraser Hurley and Guy Buchanan stared at one another, uncomprehendingly - and in the precise instant that Guy opened his mouth and prepared to say something, anything, no matter what, Fraser turned his back and walked away.

Elizabeth Doran's number virtually dialled itself. He had the Dublin code and the first three numbers by heart, snatching the paper from his pocket only to refresh his memory for the rest.

"He's on his way," he said abruptly when she answered, barely giving her a chance to speak.

"Guy?"

"He's on the afternoon flight," he reiterated. "I'll be on the next one after that. I need to talk to you."

"What about, Guy?" Liz's voice carried overtones of concern. Perhaps she was afraid of him - he must sound like a raving lunatic; at any moment the heavy hand of the security guard would land on his shoulder and he would be asked - politely - to leave the concourse.

"How long ... How long has your brother been gay?" he asked, hating himself for the way it sounded, clutching the phone like a lifebelt with hands that were frozen around it. Harry's reminder that there were two sexes on this planet, that kiss; God, he'd been blind not to make sense of it all a lot sooner - but he'd wanted to see that one bruising approach as an aberration, a drink-induced folly they could both forget. The parting from Fraser had been unequivocal; it was obvious they'd been lovers - but their relationship was physical, not emotional. It wasn't Fraser that Harry wanted to love him; it was Guy Buchanan.

"Oh. You didn't know, did you?" A startled pause, while Liz marshalled her thoughts, then; "Always."

"But ... I mean, the women ... "

"Ah, well, them too. Guy, what's wrong?"

"I didn't know, Liz. I should have known. Will you meet me? Tonight?"

"Where?"

He only knew one decent hotel in Dublin. It would have to be that one. "The Gresham. O'Connell Street."

"I know it. What time?"

"Nine o'clock."

"Yes, I'll meet you. Just me, on my own." He was startled; an instinct of protectiveness - some woman's intuition, perhaps - had told her he didn't want to see anyone else, Harry least of all. "Don't worry about it, Guy, it's going to be all right. Dada seems better today," she added, conversationally.

"What about ... "

"Don't worry, Guy," she repeated, deliberately. "Have a good flight. I'll meet you this evening. Goodbye, now."

For the second time in a day he put the phone down on her with his head reeling. The gentle Irish brogue in her voice reminded him of Patricia Lenahan, his grandmother's nurse - Cousin Edgar's fiancée. Edgar was a foul piece of work, Patricia deserved better.

And what about himself? What did he deserve? And had he made love to Patricia only because of what she was - clever, wilful, attractive, Irish? Had he been sublimating a desire for Cassidy in Patricia's safe and willing body? When was he going to stop telling himself lies about it? He shuddered. Cassidy had always been gay. He had always been straight. Never the twain shall meet. He had a feeling he was going to end up pouring his heart out to Liz Doran, explaining to her why he could no longer be a part of Harry's life, why she must take up where he left off, why she must bind up the wounds he had caused. He didn't want it to be that way, but he was running out of options. He and Cassidy could say and do whatever they wanted in London and it would have very little value; said and done in Dublin, on Harry's home ground, it was irrevocable.

Joe Deegan had handed him the care of Harry Cassidy. He was going to hand it on and then walk out of Harry's life the way Harry had walked out of Fraser's; quickly and determinedly, without looking back.

Liz Doran did not merely sound like Patricia Lenahan; there was a resemblance in their looks, too. She was small, dark, fine-featured, with long wavy chestnut hair and her brother's blue-grey eyes. They were wonderful eyes and for a moment Buchanan was quite spellbound by them, the luxurious muted shades of the hotel bedroom's décor melting into the background as he felt himself being drawn in. He made an effort to tear himself away from their attraction.

"Drink? Cigarette?" he asked, waving a hand over a half-bottle of Scotch from his room's mini-bar and his open cigarette case.

"Both," she said, sinking into the pink and gold armchair without troubling to remove her raincoat. "So you're Guy Buchanan." Her appraisal was uncomfortable, and he felt clumsy as she watched him pour her a drink. His hand shook when he lit her cigarette. "Harry said you were a charmer," she added, almost to herself.

He felt a sharp twinge of anguish. "How is he?"

"Tired. We didn't have time to talk much. I left him and Liam with Dada; I'm going back there later. You'll remember Liam?"

Would he ever forget? Cassidy's nephew had saved him from a fate infinitely worse than death by hacking into the Inland Revenue's master computer and amending his payment record, an outstanding achievement in a boy of fourteen.

"He's a fine young man. Is he your only child?"

"He is. He's enough. You never had any family?"

Buchanan allowed himself a hollow laugh. "None that I know of," he conceded. "I've ... never been married." It had been a close thing on occasion, but so far he'd managed to avoid it.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

He had been dreading her question, put as it was with the simplicity her brother would have employed.

"Yes," he conceded. "Only now that you're here ... I'm not sure that I know quite how to start." Embarrassed, he sank down into the opposite armchair and stared for a long time into the open, accepting face of Cassidy's sister. Then, unexpectedly, he said; "Liz, I don't know how to tell Harry this, but ... Joe Deegan's dead."

"Joe? How do you know Joe?"

"We met. On business. He died about three weeks ago, just after we'd seen him. I'm afraid ... Well, for reasons I won't go into, I'm afraid the news will be a terrible shock to Harry. I know they were close. Harry told me ... Joe was like a father to him."

Liz's face creased into a smile. "Oh, they were a pair of rogues," she said, laughing. "The schemes they had, the crazy dreams ... You don't want to be the one to tell him, do you?"

"I'd ... really rather not," he confessed, sheepishly. "I'll be totally frank with you, Liz; family life isn't something I've had a lot of experience with. I'm not exactly comfortable when it comes to relationships."

"I know. Harry told me ... about your grandmother, and your cousin, and all. Tell me what happened to Joe. Did you like him?"

Relaxing slightly, Buchanan leaned back in his chair. "Very much," he said. "He knew he didn't have long to live. He made me promise to look after Harry. It's a promise I won't be able to keep."

Liz shook her head. "You don't break a promise to a dying man," she said, sharply.

"No, but look, I ... "

"I won't hear it, Guy. Whatever it is, I won't hear it."

"Dammit, Liz, I didn't know ... I just want you," he went on, recovering himself in mid-sentence only with an effort, "to take over for me. Take care of him for me. I can't do it."

"Of course you can. Who better?"

Frozen in mid-movement, Guy merely stared at her. "I'm sorry?" he heard himself saying, inanely.

"Well, you love him, don't you? Isn't that enough? It was all Joe ever had."

"Yes, but Joe was ... " he paused, scanning her face, then shrugged. Of course she knew who Joe was.

"Joe was his real father," she acknowledged. "It must have been Joe told you; Harry doesn't know. It's the big family secret; it was Mammy told me. Dada only knows Harry's not his; if he knew it was Joe ... Well, it would kill him - and there's enough trying to do that already."

"I don't think ... Harry wants me as a father," he told her ruefully.

"He does not!"

Her vehemence amused him, almost making this conversation less terrifying. Liz Doran had the Irish charm just as much as her brother, that was sure.

"I could have coped with that," he said, acknowledging his own failure with a grimace. "I didn't know he was gay, you see."

"And you're not, and you're shocked? Jeezus, Guy, as if it really mattered! If you love somebody, don't you want to take care of them - whoever they are, whatever they've done?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know if I understand love at all."

"You came all the way to Ireland to make sure Harry found out about Joe in a way that wouldn't hurt him too much," Liz reminded him, softly breathing cigarette smoke as she leaned towards him. "I think you understand love well enough."

Suddenly bathed in sweat, Buchanan put up a hand to loosen the collar that constricted like a noose around his throat. Liz watched the gesture with full awareness of its eloquence.

"You've said that before," he mused, in a voice so unlike his own he barely recognised it. "Well, in a way, I suppose I do love him, but ... "

"There's always a 'but', isn't there?" she said, grimly, sitting back. "Is your track record with the girls the only thing that matters to you? Or can you get down out of your ivory tower long enough to let him know you care?"

"I do care," he admitted, sharply. "I just don't know if I can ... "

"Just care enough. You'll work something out." She had got to her feet, as though she considered the conversation closed, and through some deep-seated instinct of gallantry he managed to stir himself enough to cross the room and open the door for her.

"It isn't that simple," he said, slowly. The scene at the airport replayed itself before him, the intense scrutiny of Fraser Hurley's grey eyes still almost tangible. "There's someone else."

"You mean Fraser?"

It surprised him that she knew about that, but he should by now be inured to surprises from the Cassidy family.

"Yes," he said, letting his bewilderment show.

Liz gripped his arm affectionately. "It isn't serious," she said, softly. "Fraser's a substitute; Harry needs him for the warmth and tenderness that he doesn't get from you. Fray loves him and doesn't stop to ask questions about it. He could be happy with Fraser if there was no Guy Buchanan in the world - but you're here, you exist. My brother's breaking his heart over you. Nobody else will do. Not even Fraser, bless him."

"Then if they're not ... " Articulating the words only slowly, Buchanan was aware that his brain was working at leaden pace. Phrases that worked so simply and well for relationships between the sexes suddenly seemed inappropriate and crass and he was aware of a need not to decry Cassidy's relationship with Fraser Hurley, whatever its nature.

"Involved?" Liz supplied, amused.

"Forgive me, but ... what does Hurley stand to gain?"

"The pleasure of Harry's company," she said, with a smile. "And maybe he has a Guy Buchanan of his own somewhere. You could always ask him."

The appalling prospect produced a nervous grimace. "I ... don't think I'll do that," he admitted, wondering whether it was cowardly to resist the challenge. "Besides, do you imagine he'd tell me?"

She avoided answering the question by reaching up and kissing him affectionately on the cheek. "I like you, Guy," she told him, and to his astonishment he not only believed her but also felt relieved. "If you could only get your head sorted out you'd be a great feller. Wake yourself up and realise you need Harry - maybe even as much as he needs you. There's not a thing wrong with being in love, you know."

"Isn't there?" Bleakly he studied her face. To her it all seemed so simple, but to him it was a dangerous quagmire of feeling where one little slip could mean disaster, even death.

"Nothing at all," she told him blithely, taking her leave while he still stood in a pose of blank bewilderment and out of his sight before he could gather wit to respond. Then, slowly, he returned inside the room, locked the door behind him, and sat down again to his glass of whisky and a maze of thoughts that terrified him. It was time he made some honest decisions about Harry Cassidy - and whatever they were, he knew they were going to hurt.

The best times in his life had been in Harry Cassidy's company. From the moment Bertie Lazar - may he rot in hell - had engineered their teaming life had been a succession of delights and disasters, triumph and failure in equal measure. It hadn't been dull, that was for sure. Harry had filled his life with colour, with incident, with sparkle.

Look at me now, he thought, dejectedly. On my own in a hotel room without a thought or a scheme in my head. Played-out after paying off Ken bloody Vickers for concealing a body. Blackmailed and empty and trying not to be in love with my partner.

It was at this point, he knew, that lesser men often contemplated suicide. The thought crossed his mind only long enough to be rejected with scorn. Suicide was not elegant, not stylish. Suicide was not a Harrods-Savile Row-Burlington Arcade accessory to a gentleman's life. Drink, on the other hand, had an excellent pedigree. Temporary oblivion obtained through the bottle was infinitely preferable to permanent oblivion obtained in any other way; as Cassidy would no doubt have reminded him, tomorrow is always another day.

He tried. A bottle of Jameson's disappeared like sea mist on a hot morning, rolling away into invisibility and leaving no trace of its passing. He contemplated a second, and then reversed his contemplation and instead considered dinner. Although his stomach lurched threateningly in the lift on the way down he arrived in the dining-room upright and functioning and ordered his meal without appetite or enthusiasm.

After he had eaten - not noticing the excellence of the cuisine - he drifted along to the hotel's bar in search of a convivial atmosphere, a conversation, a potential scheme, anything to break the monotony of his own company. However for once the legendary hospitality of the Irish seemed decidedly lacking; despite the relentless blare of folk-music over the bar's sound system and the Gaelic lettering on the tariff there was really nothing to distinguish this particular hotel bar from one in Rome, or Amsterdam, or Sydney. Half-a-dozen smartly suited but weary-eyed businessmen pausing in their peregrinations for a night in Dublin were in much the same case as himself - in need of entertainment but without the energy to seek it out. He stayed half an hour, scraping a desultory conversation with a German aircraft designer who was as out of place as he was himself, and in the end, bored to the point of absurdity, he opted for satellite TV in the hotel bedroom and watched a cops and robbers film he'd seen three times before. Sleep, when it finally descended three hours later, came as a merciful release.

He awoke hating Dublin and everybody in it, from Liz Doran to the hotel porter, from the newsvendor on the corner to the receptionist and the breakfast chef - a feeling that lasted until the second cup of black coffee that accompanied his stale croissants and plastic jam. He scanned 'The Times' without particular interest, noting in passing that Fraser Hurley-trained horses had won two very respectable races on the previous day and that the selection of the England cricket team was again giving its usual trouble. The world was at odds with itself, and his place in it was no longer certain. Last night's good intentions had dissolved in a sea of whisky which had brought him no comfort; no decision about Cassidy had been forthcoming, and suddenly he knew that no decision was possible while he was pulled about by so many conflicting emotions. Cassidy could come to him in England if he wanted him. Ireland was too depressing, too hostile an environment to make any choice that could aspire to sanity.

On leaving the restaurant he glanced over to Reception and saw the German paying his bill. That made up his mind for him. Buchanan did likewise, making all the conventional noises about how comfortable his room had been and how superb the food, and asked the girl on duty to call him a taxi.

Twenty minutes later Buchanan, 'The Times' and a briefcase were getting into the back seat of the ubiquitous black taxi-cab. He had no idea of the flight-times except that they were regular enough and that the airport was as congenial a place to pass the time as any hotel. It didn't seem to matter much where he was or what he did; he was dislocated and even home - if he could call it that - was no more restful than anywhere else. It was simply that the desire to escape from Dublin before any embarrassing scene could be precipitated between himself and Cassidy had overwhelmed any other desire he may have harboured.

As the cab pulled away from the kerb he glanced out of the window towards the newspaper stall on the corner. A few feet away from it, hunched-shouldered against the biting wind that chilled down O'Connell Street towards the river, stood a small anoraked figure with hair awry and a pained expression on its pinched features. Cassidy looked more lost and alone than Buchanan could ever have imagined him, a refugee in his own land. Their eyes met, and a jolt of telepathic communication shot between them. "Could you stop, please?"

Amazed at his own urbanity, Buchanan nevertheless made the request a command. It earned him a frozen stare and a crisp comment from the taxi-driver. By way of reinforcement Buchanan yanked a ten-punt note from his wallet and dropped it into the driver's lap. The wail of car-horns all round them in the rush-hour traffic indicated exactly what the local commuters thought of erratic taxi-drivers and their indecisive fares, but once again the cab came to a halt close to the kerb and Buchanan struggled out, briefcase in hand, depositing himself and it in ungainly fashion on the pavement. The cab drew away from the kerb with much honking of its horn and waving of the driver's hand out of the window, featuring plentiful use of the famous two-fingered salute. Buchanan stood stock still, briefcase at his feet, the very picture of the high-flying businessman halted between deal and airport, the expression on his face a compound of shock and enquiry. Cassidy was some distance away, also still, also staring, waiting, as though one step nearer for either of them would bring about an inevitability neither could face.

In the end it was Buchanan who moved, half a dozen steps only through an increasing tide of pedestrians bringing him face to face with the bedraggled figure in the lee of the hotel's frontage.

"How long have you been here?" he asked, carefully, the mournful vision of Cassidy stationed outside on the pavement all night passing unbidden through his mind.

Cassidy shrugged. "Half an hour or so," he said, as though it were a complete irrelevance. "Liz brought me here on the way home from the hospital. We were there all night. Dada died at six o'clock this morning." Cassidy was looking up at him uncritically, not questioning Guy's presence in Dublin even for a moment.

Buchanan's expression twisted with a momentary, vicarious grief. "Did ... you and he...?" He stopped abruptly. What had he been intending to say? Did your father forgive you? Did he speak to you? Did you make amends?

Cassidy heard the unspoken question and answered it anyway. "When he was conscious he wouldn't see me. After he fell unconscious I stayed with him all the time, but he never came back."

"Stubborn old bastard!" The words were out before Buchanan knew exactly what he was saying, but when he realised he was in no mood to retract them or to modify them in the least.

"I've said the same thing meself," was Cassidy's mild rejoinder. "More times than I can count."

"Have you had breakfast?" The practicalities of the situation were not lost on Buchanan; all night at the hospital with a dying father, and a cold wait outside the hotel - Cassidy must be past hunger and colder than charity.

"I had coffee and biscuits while they sorted out the paperwork," the younger man supplied, vaguely. "What I need now is sleep; maybe I'll be hungry later on. C'mon, it's too cold to stand around. Let's walk." Bemused, Buchanan fell into step beside him readily, uncaring of where their feet took them.

"You were going home, I suppose?" Cassidy asked, mildly.

"Yes."

"Without seeing me?"

"I didn't think ... " Buchanan paused, modified his critical tone to one of compassion. "I didn't think you would want to see me," he explained. "I was under the impression you never wanted to see me again."

"Well, that's true enough. I didn't. But I've changed my mind. When I knew you were in Dublin I wanted to see you very much."

There was a long silence from Buchanan, during which they reached the heavy wrought-iron gates of a small Palladian-style church, an incongruously white classical temple screened by high box hedges. Cassidy swung the gates open and entered, and as the gate closed behind them it began to rain.

"I ... was afraid to see you," he admitted, the honesty the least he owed Cassidy. "You make me ask too many questions about myself. I thought I knew who I was - until you kissed me."

Cassidy turned away, his bloodless face registering the faintest flush of pink. "Ach, don't remind me about that!" he begged, painfully. "I never was any too subtle, now, was I? And it would be just like me to try and seduce someone who didn't want to be seduced. Could we forget about it, maybe?"

A marble mock-classical bench in a quiet grove presented itself. Buchanan set the briefcase on it without a thought and took a step closer to the untidy figure of his partner.

"It hardly seems appropriate to talk about it here. Now. When you've just lost your father," Buchanan told him, somehow managing not to let his gloved fingers tangle in the straying hair. Cassidy had never looked so vulnerable and never seemed so important to him; a war fought itself out in Buchanan's mind between the instinct to protect him and the terror of hurting him.

"If it's Michael Cassidy you mean, I lost him a long time ago," Harry said, very softly. "And as for Joe ... "

"Joe?" Startled, Buchanan found himself almost shouting the name, gripping Cassidy's arm ferociously.

"Joe the Lion." It was said so matter-of-factly Buchanan could barely comprehend it, and when he thought of the implications of Harry's knowing the truth he didn't want to comprehend it. Either he had known all along, in which case the whole family had been a web of little deceits and concealments, or he had just learned it, in which case the magnitude of the double shock must have been scarcely endurable - yet Cassidy seemed calm and unworried, interpreting his silence as confusion and responding to it generously. "I thought he'd have told you," he went on. "Nobody else knows. Ach, Guy, if you'd seen a picture of my mother the way she was then, you wouldn't doubt it. Whole streets of men broke their hearts over her, but she married Michael Cassidy. Six months later ... "

"You?"

"Yes. It's a long story, Guy. Another time, maybe, when I'm not so tired. It's not important now. At any rate, Joe's not got long to live himself. He's a bhoy, isn't he?"

"He loves you very much," Guy heard himself say, the deep tenderness in his tone a revelation to him. He wanted to gather Cassidy in and hold him and promise that no hurt would ever touch him again, but such loverly foolishness was beyond him. He had no intention of making any promise he could not keep, and he so he made none.

Harry's eyes met his. Against the dull sky and the background of dark, sodden vegetation they seemed brighter than he remembered them, deeper, clearer, more knowing. If he had ever had any secrets from Cassidy they were rapidly being eroded by those eyes the way water erodes limestone; soon they would be unrecognisable.

"And what about you?"

The question was so devastating in its simplicity that no direct answer was possible.

"You know," Buchanan told him, uneasily, "I don't think I deserve what you feel for me."

Cassidy offered him a thin smile. "I'm the great one for lost causes," he admitted, with a shrug. "But you should let me be the judge, Guy. If I want to waste my time and energy loving you, don't try to stop me."

"I wouldn't dream of it." The protest was sharp and genuine. "I ... wouldn't dream of it," he reiterated, more gently. "You'd be safer with Fraser," he advised, reaching out and pulling his partner closer, shielding him from the rain which, though Irish and soft and warm, was still heavy enough to penetrate clothes and chill skin.

"Fraser's wonderful," Cassidy acknowledged with a distant smile, never seeking to question the source of Buchanan's knowledge. Inky never had been able to hold his tongue; that was one of the reasons Cassidy had confided in him in the first place. "He's gentle and kind - and like you say he's safe. But I never wanted to be safe, Guy. Never in my life."

Awkwardly Guy leaned forward, his forehead touching Cassidy's as Cassidy snuggled closer to him for warmth.

"I feel so ... strange," he admitted. "Right but not right. Cassidy, I've got an awful lot to learn ... "

"I'll teach you." The response was almost too quick, too confident.

"No, I mean ... I'm starting from scratch with this, Harry. I've never been even this close to a man before. I envy women, you know; they can hug and kiss one another and nobody thinks anything of it, but you and I could get thrown in jail just for ... for being here like this."

"Well, I'd certainly be excommunicated," Cassidy told him, drily. "It isn't even a Catholic church."

A silence fell, a silence full of quality as Buchanan slowly adjusted to the fact that in broad daylight, only a few yards from a busy commuter street in a bustling city, out of doors in the pouring rain, he was holding Harry Cassidy in his arms, resting his cheek in Harry's hair, and wondering what the hell kind of mess he was making of his life. The con game required nerves of steel and a blind trust in one's own and one's partner's abilities, but nothing he had ever undertaken had left him with this feeling between fear and exhilaration - or this total conviction that whatever the rest of his life held it would all be worth it for this moment.

"Guy?" The silence was broken by Cassidy's soft voice.

"Hmmmm?"

"Are you ever going to kiss me?"

Startled, Buchanan took a half-step backwards and almost kneecapped himself on the stone bench. Cursing, he was torn between Harry's laughter and his own discomfort only for a second, and then let the laughter wash over him and take him along with it.

"Yes," he said, between giggles. "Yes, I certainly am. But not here, and not now, because once I start ... " He sobered, his eyes full of conflicting emotions. "Once I start, I won't be able to stop," he admitted. "That was always the problem, Harry. You do understand?"

"I do."

More long seconds passed as the impact of the words gradually came home to Cassidy and he considered their importance, and his smile remained serene and confident.

"So ... what happens now? Or do we stay here till we take root?"

Cassidy shrugged, threading his arm through Guy's and picking up the almost-forgotten briefcase. "We'll take a taxi to Liz's, where we'll dry ourselves out and have some breakfast, and I'll pick up me belongings. We'll go back to London on the one o'clock."

"You don't want to stay for the funeral?"

"What for? I've said me goodbyes to Dada and Joe already. Besides, one of us would have to sleep on the sofa and since you're the tallest it would probably be me. I'd sooner spend tonight in a decent bed, if you don't mind."

"With ... With me?"

The Irish grin became impish and expansive, although it brought out lines of tiredness in Cassidy's face that hadn't been there before - or had they, and Buchanan had been too selfish to notice?

"If you're askin'."

"Yes."

"Then I think it could be arranged," Cassidy told him, reassuringly squeezing the arm he had snared with his own. "And on the way," he added, looking up into Buchanan's brown eyes with a sympathy and affection Buchanan had never thought himself capable of deserving, "I'll ring Fraser and tell him I'm not coming back."

He pulled open the creaking wrought-iron gate and they stepped out onto the pavement. Arm in arm and totally absorbed in one another's company, oblivious to the hurrying multitudes in the rush-hour city, they strolled away together up the rain-soaked street, turned the corner slowly, and were lost to sight among the crowds.

the tracks of my tears

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