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Senior Constable Hugh Collins had just arrived at City South and was making the abominable tea that was his trademark, when he heard whistling outside. The doors to the station opened, and Senior Detective Inspector Jack Robinson strode in. Hugh didn’t give himself away—he was getting better and better at hiding his reactions, hoping one day to achieve the sangfroid of his superior officer—but whistling was certainly not an everyday occurrence.
"Morning, Collins,” the Inspector said, sounding uncharacteristically lighthearted.
He stepped briskly down the hall to his office, hung up his coat and hat, and sat down at his desk. He heaved a large, pleased sigh, and gazed off into the distance.
He was tired, but not fatigued: in fact, he was invigorated.
The Inspector picked up some papers, trying to take up where he had left off the day before…Ah, but the day before—so much had happened since then. Jack put the papers down, and for once, let himself take a moment to let the feelings rush over him. A part of him wondered if it had been a dream—certainly it was the stuff of dreams—but it was reality. Memory overwhelmed him briefly; flashes of movement remembered, sounds, senses overtaken. The rustle of clothing, wordless whispers, swirling sheets and smooth, soft invitation. It all washed over him again.
At last he got himself focused on his work, but it was all for naught: high-heeled shoes came clicking down his hallway in an unmistakable rhythm. She was here. Something in him had wondered whether she would appear or not.
**
Moments before, the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher had breezed through the front door of City South police station, where she was a very familiar visitor. “Good morning, Hugh!” she sang, in a cheerful way.
Senior Constable Collins smiled right back. “Good morning, Miss Fisher,” he said brightly, although there was little morning left to the day. It didn’t matter. His day had been going well, and his senior officer was in such a good mood, and here was Miss Fisher in such a good mood as well. It was a great day, as far as Hugh was concerned.
It was a great day as far as Phryne was concerned, as well—great, meaning momentous. She headed down the hall with a nod to Hugh, who made no effort to stop her.
When she reached the door emblazoned with “Detective Inspector J. Robinson”, which was slightly ajar, she opened it with panache, a knowing smile on her face. “Hallo, Jack,” she said.
He was seated at his desk, as she expected, and he looked up from the papers he had been reading. He wore a different suit, she noted. “Good morning, Miss Fisher,” he said, as if it were a private joke—and perhaps it was.
Phryne gazed into the eyes that she had gazed into so many times before. They were rimmed with that deep blue that found its way into her dreams, and they pierced all the way through to her inmost secrets. He wore that familiar smile, as well; to some it would hardly be called a smile, it was just the slightest bit of an upturn at the corner of his mouth, but she knew it to be the sign that he was vastly amused.
Everything about their meeting this morning was exactly like so many mornings before; and yet it was entirely different.
How could it be that she felt so unsure? This couldn’t be Phryne Fisher, standing before a man with butterflies in her stomach. Was this what she had wanted? Had she ever realized it would be like this?
And there he was, the picture of male self-assurance. They stared silently, sizing each other up.
Phryne at last broke the silence. She tilted her head, and asked offhandedly, “Busy morning?”
This time the smile spread further across his face. “Nothing but paperwork so far. No new cases…yet.”
“Oh.” She didn’t give anything away—at least she didn’t think she did—but at the same time she didn’t feel she fooled him for a minute. She reached up and brushed at her hair.
He wasn’t going to help at all, damn him. He just waited, calm, still, sure of himself.
She looked back at his face, and all was lost. Those eyes, those eyes boring into hers. And he hadn’t been grinning with that mouth last night—well, yes, he had, eventually, but before that…
She was consumed with the memories of the night before. The passion had been there, just under the surface, all the time, she realized. She had known it instinctively, and now she knew it in reality.
She had loved many men, and she knew that really, there were only so many ways that bodies fit together; it was largely a question of generosity. There were lovers who were in a hurry to reach the climax of the loving, lovers who were kind but clumsy, lovers who were overly concerned with the impression they left. Some wanted compliments on their prowess, some wanted validation, and some just wanted to claim her.
Jack was nothing like any of those lovers. She felt infinitely treasured when he loved her. But what would happen now? She was afraid of the possessiveness, the sense of ownership that some men assumed over her once they had been intimate. Jack seemed to be such a traditional man, yet she held out hope that he wouldn’t be like the rest. She waited uneasily to see what came next.
**
Despite his calm demeanour, Jack was planning his next move with care. He had a feeling that his future with Phryne was riding on the next few moments, far more than on the events of the night before. He knew he had better choose his words wisely to avoid falling through thin ice.
“I’m guessing you didn’t come to help with my paperwork?” was his gambit.
She made a face at him to acknowledge the joke, but asked earnestly, “Jack, what happens now?”
He took a moment before he made his response. “The same thing that always happens,” he answered at last. “You barge into my office, lounge against my desk, flaunt your… flawless…legs at me, and generally tease me mercilessly.”
Well, that was unexpected. “I can do that,” she agreed easily. “And then what happens?”
“Why, nothing. This is a public office in a police station.”
She contemplated. “Even though I’ve teased you mercilessly?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it?”
“No.”
“Not a thing?”
He simply gazed at her, eyes as piercing as ever.
“Except maybe…anticipate?”
“Perhaps,” he nodded.
Phryne was by now very much in the spirit of this conversation. “And might you, then, come by my house after your shift is over? After…anticipating…all day long?”
“That might very well happen.”
“And might you join me for a drink, or a meal? And might you be filled with that feeling of anticipation?”
“That would be a very familiar feeling, yes,” he sighed. The sense of confidence he exuded seemed to slip a bit, and he breathed a bit faster. Their conversational contest was having its effect on him as well.
Phryne noticed it. This was delightful. She had worried so about seeing him this morning; the last thing she could have imagined was for him to propose this game, in which she seemed to be calling all the shots.
“Oh, Jack! What might happen after anticipating all day, and then coming to my house, and sharing some fine whiskey? Might I—flaunt something else at you?”
“Well, you see, I never know just what you’ll do. You might do that, I suppose.”
She smiled that special smile that was only for him. “Because you must see, I would have been anticipating all day as well.”
His dark eyes gleamed. “Would you have?”
“Of course I would. And after last night…I would know what I’d been waiting for.”
He leaned back in his chair, a slow, cool smile pulling at his lips. The self-assuredness returned, and she was happy that her words were responsible. Again, he said not a word, but she saw the slight nod.
Phryne came around and perched on the edge of his desk, wondering if she could think of a reason to flash her garter at him. Before she could come up with a plan, Hugh tapped at the door. “Excuse me, sir. I had a call from Dr. MacMillan asking you to come to the morgue. I told her Miss Fisher was here, too.”
Hugh looked first at Inspector Robinson and then at Miss Fisher. He had had the oddest feeling, earlier, that something had changed between the two of them. He saw that they were in their usual places in the office, and the air was crackling in the way that Hugh had noticed so many times before. They both looked up at him nonchalantly, with an overtone of trying to cover up being caught doing something they shouldn’t have.
Hugh realized that he must have been mistaken. Clearly, everything was the same as ever.