New Tracks, Part 10

[aelfgyfu_mead]

"New Tracks" by Aelfgyfu
PARTS: 20 plus epilogue
RATING: FRT (fan-rated teen: violence, occasional bad language)
CATEGORIES: Drama, angst, hurt/discomfort, some humour; AU, fix-it
SUMMARY: Noel Miller tries to find his place on Nick Cutter's team; Stephen Hart tries to find his way back onto the team; and Nick has to deal with them, creatures from the past, and his own stubbornness.
SPOILERS: Everything through 2.07 and my own story "Fresh Scars"
WARNINGS: Some tasteless humour, some medical detail
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (dudethemath), kristen_mara, and lukadreaming, all of whom acted as betas and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors, infelicities, and poor judgement are my own.
DISCLAIMER: Primeval and its characters are owned by Impossible Pictures, ITV Productions, M6 Films, Pro 7, and possibly other entities I couldn't easily find on IMDb. No copyright infringement is intended, and indeed the story probably won't make sense unless you've watched. So watch the show, buy the DVDs, etc. I do not profit from fic except insofar as comments make me happy.

Additional notes and links to all posted parts at this story's launch page

Previous Part: 9



Nick wasn't at all sure Stephen was ready to be back at work. Dr Gupta had been so hard on Nick about his concussion, then she'd given him the third degree before she let him return to work himself. How could she allow Stephen return to the ARC while he still needed a walking stick and could only work a few hours at a time? Moreover, though he hadn't heard any sounds of distress from Stephen at night, Nick could tell simply by looking at him that the man wasn't getting all the sleep he needed. Stephen wasn't a talker like Connor, but he'd been unusually quiet during the meeting. Dr Gupta should have known better.

When Nick returned home, Stephen dutifully answered questions. Yes, he was fine; no, he wasn't tired. Nick didn't tell him that the clearly visible imprint of the sofa arm on his cheek made it obvious he'd recently taken a nap, and probably an impromptu one.

Yet despite his misgivings, Nick was honestly glad to drive into work with Stephen again the next morning. It had been weeks. Hell, it had been months since they'd shared a ride to work without any bickering or frosty silences.

Unfortunately, he apparently couldn't keep his doubts completely hidden. Stephen spent half the journey insisting the change of scenery would keep him from overdoing things, and that with more people watching him, he'd be less likely to get into trouble. Not that he'd be getting into trouble when he was alone, he'd added. Now that was convincing.

Thus Nick felt entirely justified going to check on Stephen every once in a while at work. As he returned to the lab where he'd left Stephen, he could hear Noel talking; he missed a few words, but the young man definitely ended, "...told the Professor?"

"No. Why would I do that?" Stephen was asking, his back to the door.

"Tell me what?" Nick asked as he stepped into the room.

Stephen turned towards him and rolled his eyes. "Nothing important."

Nick frowned. His second day at work, and Stephen was back to this foolishness already? "I thought we weren't keeping secrets anymore. Why don't you tell me, and I'll decide if it's important?"

Stephen settled onto the edge of the nearest desk. "Nothing, really. We ran into Jensen last week when I was showing Miller the photos and trackways at CMU...."

"Who?" Nick asked when Stephen paused for breath.

"See?" Stephen said, turning a little towards Noel, who was watching it all with a very guarded expression. "He doesn't even remember Jensen!"

Nick crossed his arms.

Stephen turned back to him, looking annoyed. "Tony Jensen. Fair-haired bloke, a little shorter than you are, finished his PhD not long after I finished my Master's?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember him." Only vaguely, but Nick did remember him. He'd been one of Helen's students too, but he'd completed his degree with someone else. Stephen was the only one of Helen's students that Nick had taken on. "Well, go on."

Stephen shrugged. "Not much to tell. He was using the collection too, and he chatted with us a bit. Miller thought he was after something. I... didn't." His jaw clenched. "Miller was right. I got an e-mail from Jensen this morning, forwarded from my old CMU account. He's got a grant, wanted to see if he could lure me away." Stephen held his gaze steadily, even if he did seem to be annoyed.

Noel peered at his own computer almost convincingly, making random mouse motions.

Nick couldn't help but glance at the walking stick abandoned against the other desk, Stephen's slightly hunched shoulders, and the cast still on his wrist. Really, Stephen would be better off somewhere else. This Jensen fellow wasn't likely to get him killed. So why did Nick feel dread when he asked, "So what did you tell him?"

Stephen looked at him like he'd called Jenny 'Claudia' again. No, he had more sympathy when he called her the wrong name. "I deleted it, of course."

Nick felt a guilty sort of relief, which he tried to swallow. "Maybe you shouldn't have. Did you even read the details? Maybe you ought to consider his offer....”

He wasn't sure what he expected. A smile, or a laugh. Certainly not a glare that felt like it would burn through Nick if Stephen didn't break it off soon. Then Stephen pushed off the desk and practically stomped out of the room past Nick, not saying a word.

All right, Nick realised, he must have done something wrong, but he wasn't sure what. He was entitled to be concerned for Stephen, wasn't he? He wasn't even fussing over him.

"Did I miss something?" he asked Noel.

The lieutenant's eyebrows went up as he stopped pretending to look at the computer. "Sir?"

"Did I miss something? Because I don't see how what I just said could possibly cause Stephen to storm out of the room."

The eyebrows stayed up.

Nick was losing patience. "Well, then, what the hell did I say?”

After a pause, long enough for the eyebrows to descend to a more normal altitude, Noel said quietly, "It sounded, sir, like you were suggesting Mr Hart find a new job."

Nick started to argue, but he was already replaying the conversation in his head. "Oh, hell! That wasn't what I meant."

Noel's eyebrows started upwards again.

"Yes, I know you're not the one I need to tell!"

***

Trying to rein in his anger at Cutter and himself, Stephen headed for the rec room. Once he could keep his temper, he'd go back and see if Cutter truly meant for him to leave the ARC. First, though, he had to calm down. He'd been over his past behaviours with Jacobs enough to realise that when he answered quickly while angry, like as not he'd make things worse. Of course, stomping out of the room wouldn't exactly have shown Cutter that Stephen was ready to return to work, let alone fit to rejoin the team eventually.

Stephen hadn't quite made it to the rec room when an odour hit him like a punch to the stomach. Assailed by a sense of dread, he slowed, but then the full force of the stench washed over him. He felt hot all over, and while he knew he was still in the ARC, he could almost see that room full of monsters, even the ceiling crawling with creatures as he lay on his back on the floor, thinking he'd never get up again—

He started to make a run for restroom just around the corner, but the best he could manage was a fast limp. He managed to drag himself into a cubicle before he sank to the floor and could try to get his breathing under control again.

Something had burned. He knew that charred smell couldn't really be animal flesh and fur, but he couldn't think what it might really be. The smell that had overwhelmed him before he lost consciousness all those weeks before overcame the memory of what he'd walked through just minutes ago. He gave up trying to identify it and closed his eyes. He couldn't hear anyone else in the room. Thank God. That was the very last thing he needed to deal with. Stephen slowed his breathing, but his heart was still racing. He pushed the cubicle door closed belatedly, in case someone did enter.

Had anyone noticed him rushing in? He thought he'd heard Abby's voice from the rec room, but he wasn't sure she'd been speaking to him. Cutter might come after him, demanding to know why he hadn't told him about Jensen sooner. Or insisting he take the job.

Focusing on that conversation helped Stephen push away the memories of the smells, both more and less recent.

Did Nick truly want him gone? He hadn't been happy when Stephen first returned to work, but he'd said he didn't think Stephen was ready. Was that simply an excuse? Maybe he didn't trust Stephen anymore. He couldn't blame Cutter, if he was honest with himself. Even if Cutter forgave his recent betrayal with Helen, he'd shown a complete lack of judgement. He'd been unable to work out who was on whose side, he'd believed the crap Helen had fed him even when she had the flimsiest of excuses for everything, and he'd never even wondered how she could know about the conspiracy if she weren't involved.

On the other hand, Cutter had come almost daily to see Stephen as he was recovering—and he wasn't giving Cutter enough credit if he ascribed that all to guilt. Nick probably felt some guilt that Stephen had taken his place inside that bunker room, but he'd talked to Stephen. Hell, Cutter had admitted mistakes of his own, and no amount of guilt would ever get Nick Cutter to open his heart to somebody.

Stephen remained seated on the floor while he played their recent conversation back in his head, paying attention to the words and the body language as Jacobs had been trying to get him to do. It didn't look or sound like Cutter really wanted to get rid of him. He hadn't sounded angry; there was something else in his voice, something... sadder. Concern? Disappointment? Maybe he thought Stephen would take the offer—or regret not taking it. Stephen had a list of regrets longer than he was tall, but he couldn't imagine he'd add deleting that e-mail to the list. He didn't want another job. He wanted to keep this one, and start doing it properly again.

If Cutter was worried about him or wanted to talk more, he'd be looking for Stephen. Stephen had better pull himself together. He pushed himself to his feet. Even if Cutter wasn't looking for him, Stephen probably ought to find him and apologise.

His pulse was almost back to normal. He looked at himself in the mirror. Was his face a little flushed? He splashed some water on it. Oh, damn—he remembered too late they didn't have paper towels. They had electric hand dryers, for environmental reasons. Well, he wasn't using one of those to dry his face. He did the best he could with a sleeve. All right: he was ready to face the world. And maybe even Cutter.

As soon as Stephen opened the door, he saw Cutter leaning against the wall opposite the door to the toilets. Cutter looked deeply worried. Stephen had received enough of those looks lately.

"There are two cubicles in there, you know, if you want a little privacy." His voice was a touch shaky, but he thought he pulled off the smile. A bit of damp hair slipped down onto his forehead. He probably wasn't fooling Cutter at all.

"I, I—I thought I ought to apologise," Nick began.

Stephen leaned back against the wall next to the door, relieving the weight on his left leg. "I, erm...."

Nick sucked in a deep breath. "Look, let me say it, because it's not like I'll do a better job given more time," he said in a rush. "I realised—that didn't come out the way I meant it. I meant you'd be safer somewhere else. I didn't mean that I don't want you here."

Stephen had realised that, though belatedly. "Yeah. Erm—I... overreacted. I...." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I was afraid... I was kind of afraid that was what what you'd think, if you heard, so...."

"Are you honestly worried that I don't want you here?" Nick asked.

Stephen brought his eyes up from the floor to Cutter's face. "I'm afraid I'm never really going to be back on the team," he confessed.

"You've had little more than a month to recover, and you're worried about being back at full strength? You need to give yourself more time than that! You were laid up for the better part of six weeks that time you broke your leg in the rock slide!"

While Stephen tried to think of an answer, Cutter added, "That godawful smell? I nearly had to duck in there myself once I walked through that, but I reckoned the last thing you needed was company."

Stephen had no idea what to say to that.

"What, you think I didn't notice the smell? God, I—" Nick stopped, then added hesitantly, "I suppose it was too much to hope that you wouldn't remember that."

Stephen chuckled drily. "I don't remember what happened clearly after a point, but that smell—I don't think I'll ever forget that part." It hadn't occurred to him that of course Cutter knew the smell as well. He'd been right outside the room while the creatures died, and Cutter hadn't been the one to pass out. He'd been conscious the whole time, unlike Stephen.

Nick shrugged helplessly. After opening his mouth a couple of times, he looked at his watch instead. "Look, you should be going in shortly anyway. Why don't I take you home—"

"No, I'm fine." Stephen had to be fine. If a bad smell could put him out of commission, he'd never get back on the team. "You don't need to leave work. I'll do a little more, and then one of the soldiers—"

Nick slapped his hands against the wall behind him but took another deep breath, and let this one out slowly, before he spoke. "I'm glad you're fine, because I'm sure as hell not."

Stephen looked away and started to shove his hands into his pocket, but the cast stopped him. He frowned at Cutter, not sure how he could make it clear that he was fit for work. Was Cutter really confessing that the smell had upset him, too? Or was he just trying to make Stephen feel better? Cutter rarely seemed concerned to put people at ease. Stephen wasn't sure the man would know how to do that if he'd wanted.

"I need to get out of here, and I think you do too," Nick said. "You wait here. Connor's cleaning up that mess he made in the microwave, and I doubt the smell is gone yet. I'll go back and get your stick. Anything else you need before you leave?"

The smell came from the microwave. Connor had burnt something in the microwave. Nothing more. Stephen shrugged. "The laptop too. I'll come with you."

"No—"

"Look, if I can't even walk past a microwave, how am I ever going to...." Stephen turned and started walking, giving Nick no real chance to argue.

"You don't have to prove anything," Nick said in a low tone as he caught up.

"Not to you," Stephen answered in an undertone. Damn, he hadn't meant to say that out loud. He focused on not limping.

Abby appeared in the doorway to the rec room. She must have known something was going on, to judge from her wide-open eyes. "Oh, good! You found him," she said as they drew close.

"Yes—he, he hadn't gone too far," Nick stammered.

"Not lost," Stephen said, even managing a smile as he passed Abby. He tried not to inhale until he was well past the doorway, but he still caught a whiff of the stink. Nick dropped back, no doubt to reassure her. He wondered what they'd said about him.

He went back to the office where Miller still sat at a computer and fumbled through a sort of apology. He felt a bit better when Miller offered an equally awkward one for butting in and managing to alert Cutter.

Nick wasn't long in entering the room either.

"Tell Lester I'm taking Stephen home, will you?" Nick asked Miller.

"Cutter!" Stephen said with exasperation. "You can't make him tell Lester! Tell Lester yourself."

"Why can't I ask Noel?" Nick asked.

"Because the military aren't allowed to talk back when he gets all sarcastic on them!" Stephen added to Miller over his shoulder as he left the room, "Don't tell Lester. Cutter will tell Lester."

He heard Nick tell Miller, "I'll be back in a little while," and then Cutter followed Stephen back into the hallway.

"Ryan could handle Lester," Nick whined.

"Ryan was a captain, and not a brand-new one, either." Stephen started the other way down the hallway so he wouldn't pass the rec room. "Miller's a new lieutenant."

Nick ended up telling Lorraine where he was going, and Stephen called him "coward," but Lorraine smiled at them anyway.

It was a quiet drive back. Stephen didn't feel talkative, and Cutter seemed to be turning over everything in his head again. He did assure Cutter that yes, he'd be fine for lunch; no, he didn't need Nick to get him anything; no, he wasn't in pain.

Cutter insisted on seeing Stephen into the house, and by the time they had climbed the front steps, Stephen knew he was limping a little.

"Look, you're exhausted. Maybe you should go to bed?" Cutter suggested.

Stephen sighed. "Maybe a little rest," he conceded. He turned. "Thanks for bringing me back, and I'll see you later."

Nick frowned. "Sure you're all right? Don't need any help getting your boots off? Need any—"

"Cutter!" Stephen made an effort to smile after he realised how sharp he'd just been. "I'm fine. I'm going to take a little rest, then have some lunch." He sighed. "I just want to get back to normal. Yesterday, Sergeant Tyler brought me back, and he didn't even see me up the front steps. I was fine then. I'm okay now, honest."

"All right. Phone if you need anything."

Stephen watched from a window to make sure Cutter drove away before turning on his laptop and getting back to work. He didn't need a lie-down. That would only bring back those images the smell had already reawakened in his mind. He wanted to focus on something else.

***

Nick wasn't surprised when he found a message back at the ARC that Lester wanted to see him. He didn't know if Lester wanted to give him a hard time about leaving in the middle of the day, or if he was going to ask about Stephen's fitness. Let him ask the doctors if he wanted to know how Stephen was doing. As for the rest, Nick could take an early lunch if he wanted.

He wasn't prepared for Lester to say, as soon as the door closed behind him, "I hope the make-up sex made it all worthwhile."

Nick's gut reaction was to reply with an obscenity, but God knew what Lester would have made of that. He decided it was best simply to drop into a chair without waiting to be invited to sit and glare at the man.

"Oh, by all means, have a seat!" Lester said with a gesture. He was almost smiling now.

Nick wondered if "piss off" might be safe, but Lester seemed to be waiting for him to say something, so he decided not to say anything.

"Oh, come now, someone was going to make that joke," Lester said, leaning forward on the desk a little. "Actually, someone probably already has."

Nick stared at him some more.

Lester folded his hands and sighed. "Fine. We can skip the pleasantries."

Nick waited.

Lester stared back, probably trying to guess what Nick was doing. "So is Stephen all right?"

"He will be. He's a bit tired."

Lester waited for him to say something more. Nick wondered if he should have tried this tactic months ago.

"Very well, Cutter. Remember the little talk we had about how I'm not the enemy, and I need to know what's happening with my people?"

Nick nodded.

"I need to know what's happening with Stephen. And you."

"Nothing's happening," Nick said. It had the advantage of being true: everything that had happened was now settled, past tense. "Stephen's been through a hell of a lot, and I took him home. He said he'd do some more work this afternoon, and he'll be in tomorrow."

Lester didn't look pleased. "You know, if ordered, Miller can repeat a conversation nearly verbatim."

Nick bristled. "I take it you ordered him?" How much had Noel repeated? That wasn't fair. To anybody.

"Yes, although Miller delivered it in a monotone and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if he thought you two had kissed and made up."

It was no wonder, if Lester had worded it like that.

Lester went on, "It sounded like one of your typical blow-ups with Stephen, but he doesn't usually go home after them. And you don't usually go home with him."

Nick frowned. How many blow-ups had Lester even witnessed between him and Stephen?

"So I wondered if anything else was going on?"

"Doesn't Stephen have a psychiatrist for this sort of thing? I don't think he needs you trying to get inside his head as well," Nick snapped, uncertain how to deal with a surprisingly concerned Lester.

Lester winced a little, perhaps. Nick wasn't sure.

"He has a psychiatrist that you won't see, and I have to work with all of you. The grunge twins are clearly concerned—"

Grunge twins? "I'll talk to Abby and Connor."

"The point is that unless I put us all in group therapy—and I don't think anyone wants that—I've still got to pay some attention to what's going on among you all." Lester leaned back in his chair. "Because there was hell to pay last time I simply let things go," he concluded quietly.

Nick knew that Lester had been concerned for Stephen; he'd been to see him in hospital a few times and inquired after him regularly. It had never once crossed his mind Lester might feel he bore some responsibility, or that he might also be concerned for Nick. He shifted in his chair. Knowing that Lester felt some guilt didn't make this conversation any easier.

Surely Lester didn't need to know about the flashback. As Nick had said, Stephen was already in counselling. He didn't need a bureaucrat informed about it. Hearing about the argument ought to satisfy him.

"Stephen and I had a disagree—no, it was more of a misunderstanding. I said the wrong thing, he got angry...." Nick swallowed and hoped Lester wouldn't notice that he was omitting a huge part of the story. "I caught up with him, we sorted things out. He'd have stayed here a little longer, but I talked him into going home, and I took him before he could change his mind."

Lester nodded slowly.

"I hardly think it was worth interrogating my whole team," Nick added, remembering why he'd been angry. "Why didn't you just phone me?"

Lester's mouth quirked up a little. "This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have while you were driving."

He had a point there.

"And," Lester added conversationally, "exactly when were you planning to tell me that one of Helen's former students was trying to hire Stephen Hart away from the ARC?"

Nick frowned. When Lester worded it that way....

"That's what I thought," Lester answered his own question. "It didn't seem important that someone who worked with Helen tried to hire your assistant 48 hours after Helen's little visit to him?"

Well, perhaps he should have mentioned it, but other concerns had taken higher priority. "You know, if you weren't always being nasty to people, they might talk to you more willingly," Nick couldn't help saying.

Lester pursed his lips and pretended to consider. "I think that's a little too radical a change in my management style," he said at last. "We'll be keeping an eye on this Jensen fellow. Anything else I should know?"

Nick shook his head. "I don't think so." He started to get up, and Lester didn't stop him. He'd put in the request for a new microwave for the rec room later.

***

Noel thought of Torchwood's "Day One" and consoled himself that at least it wasn't his first day at work, and he hadn't freed an alien life form to kill innocent civilians on the streets of Cardiff. He'd set Professor Cutter and his assistant at each other, apparently after a month-long truce, and he'd topped it off by repeating the entire thing to their boss when ordered.

If he was transferred, was it too much to hope that he might be with Derrick and Flash again? But he'd only recently got used to the idea that he could stay with his wife....

Connor and Abby sidling into the room interrupted his pity party. They peered in before entering, and Connor seemed to check behind the furniture before they sat down, Abby in a chair and Connor on the edge of his desk.

"Did you see what happened between Cutter and Stephen?" Abby asked in a low voice.

Noel shrugged noncommittally.

"You didn't?" Connor asked in surprise. "Because Lester seemed to think you had—"

"Oh, he saw it," Abby cut him off. "He just doesn't want to tell us." She leaned towards him, and between the menace in her posture and a smell he couldn't identify, it was all Noel could do not to lean back. He wasn't sure what he was afraid of. It was irrational to be afraid of Abby, he told himself firmly. But he did like her, and he wanted to keep her good opinion. That was rational.

So was a desire for self-preservation.

Abby really stank, though. Possibly Connor as well. What on earth had they been doing? He didn't think it was an animal smell.

"If you want to know what they said, you should ask them," Noel said, trying to focus back on the timeline he'd been working on: the last time the owners had reported the car used, the time Helen had been picked up on camera near Hart's flat....

"Oh, right," Abby said, still quietly, still leaning towards him. "I'll tell Cutter you told me to ask him what happened. I'm sure he'll be happy to repeat the whole thing for us."

"How're we supposed to help them if we don't know what's going on?" Was Connor purposely playing good cop to Abby's bad cop? Noel looked up at him. No, Connor was entirely in earnest. So was Abby.

Noel's shoulders sagged in defeat. "Look, I hardly even understood it! Apparently the Professor meant to say that Hart would be safer somewhere else, but Hart took it the wrong way—"

"You mean safer at the house?" Connor asked, perplexed.

Having said that much, Noel could hardly stop. "No, safer in another position."

"You mean something that would keep him here at the ARC?" Connor asked, still befuddled.

"No." Noel felt himself sinking deeper into the emotional quicksand. "Something outside...."

"He suggested Stephen look for another job?" Noel could feel the tide of Abby's fury starting to turn away from him.

"No, no." He sighed. Best to come clean and get it over with. "Hart had an e-mail offering him a job, as somebody else's assistant, somebody he knew from university. He told me because—well, I don't know why he told me." Maybe he'd done it simply because Noel was there when the e-mail arrived; maybe he wanted to confirm Noel's suspicions about Jensen's motives. It hardly mattered now.

He continued, "I asked him if he was going to tell the Professor, and that's when Professor Cutter came in." Lester would probably tell everyone at the next briefing anyway, Noel salved his conscience.

Abby and Connor looked at each other.

"But they straightened it out. Hart went home with the Professor. The Professor said he'd be back soon." He sighed again. "Mr Lester came and asked me what had happened, though. He made it an order. I had to tell him."

Somehow that seemed to have been exactly the right thing to say, because now Abby's look held only sympathy.

"That's all right," she confided. "You can't do worse than we've done. Well, than Connor has done," she amended with a half-hearted glare.

What could they possibly have done to rival his performance for the day so far?

They explained the smell and the effect it had apparently had on Stephen, who'd practically broken into a run as he passed the room, Abby said. She'd got Cutter to confirm her suspicions, too. Noel hadn't been close enough to the action that terrible day to have smelled what had happened when the force fields were activated on the animals. Now he could identify the smell on his two friends. Yes, Noel had to admit, that did probably beat his own errors for the day. He offered to help them clean up.

"No, I think we took care of it," Connor said, brushing his fringe away from his eyes. "It wasn't easy, but there wasn't any smell when we left, was there, Abby?"

"No, I think it was all gone. You know they make sprays now to neutralise odours in the air? Good thing we found some in the rec room cupboard."

Noel looked at them incredulously: how could they not notice that they reeked? They looked back.

"What?" Connor asked, so he told them.

They'd both run off in search of fresh clothes and showers by the time Cutter returned. He gave a suspicious sniff and sat down in the chair Abby had vacated.

"So Lester can order you to repeat conversations."

"I'm afraid so, sir. I'm very sorry about that. And about putting my nose in where it didn't belong, sir, as I told Mr Hart." He was truly sorry about that. He thought Hart should have volunteered the information, but he had never meant to force the issue.

Cutter gave him a look he couldn't quite interpret. "Didn't I tell you to stop calling me 'sir'?"

Noel was fairly sure he'd have recalled that. "I don't remember, sir." The formality was out of his mouth before he could stop it. All right, he might have forgotten.

Cutter cracked a smile. "Habit?"

"Yes s—" Noel wished he could start the day again.

"Well, work on breaking it. It's annoying. But it's probably a good thing you did tell Lester. Were you the one who realised it was Helen's student approaching Stephen? Because I heard him say it, but neither of us thought to tell Lester."

In fact, Noel had only put it together when he'd been producing the ordered recapitulation of the argument. It hardly seemed fair to take credit for that. He settled for admitting he might have highlighted the relationship between Tony Jensen and Helen Cutter in his retelling.

"Good thinking," Cutter said approvingly, and Noel felt a little guilty at being praised for working out something he ought to have realised sooner. "I think in dealing with Helen, we can't be too paranoid." Cutter stopped suddenly, focusing somewhere in the distance. "Well, sometimes we can. But you were right to point this one out."

After all that, Noel found himself dragged to lunch with the whole team, because no one had eaten yet. The others began talking about Hart over lunch, and they seemed so genuinely concerned for him that Noel thought he really must get to know Hart better.

Part 11