TITLE:       Voids (Entry for the XOVER Challenge)
AUTHOR:      Eleanor B.
PAIRING:     The Bill/Professionals - Burnside/Doyle
RATING:      PG, A
ARCHIVE:     Jasmine Alley only
DISCLAIMERS: Obviously they don't belong to me. Pearson owns
             The Bill and I think LWT still owns The Professionals.
THANKS TO:   The Manic Street Preachers 

COMMENTS: I think I'm being really over ambitious with this. References to
the Professionals ep. Private Madness Public Danger and to The Bill ep.
Sleeping with the Enemy but nothing that could really be thought of as a
spoiler. OK so I made one little change in a character name but since I
don't believe it's actually spoken in the ep I figured I could. There are
places where it's not very PC either but neither were the late '60's.

FEEDBACK:     Oh yes please, to  Jo at eleanorb@pavilion.co.uk

*********
"All of my sins are attempts to fill the voids
All of my voids they are filled with sin"

My Little Empire - Manic Street Preachers

***********
It was a week when the past crept into the present like a cat burglar,
silent and unwelcome. Not unexpected, if Frank Burnside thought about
it, but still leaving him wishing he'd been able to take out a little
emotional insurance in the intervening years.

The first was easiest to deal with. That tart, Victoria and her age old
scam. The most humiliating moment of his career he'd called it. A lie,
of course, but it'd been what Kerry Holmes had wanted to hear. And
in his experience people trusted you more if they thought they had
some personal insight into your character. The lie and that nice little
bit of 'lost time' in Victoria's  room had done wonders for his reputation
with both sexes in Sun Hill CID. But it was over now, memories buried
in a mix of grudging respect and amusement.

And now? He glanced up at the TV again. Well this was a different matter,
something older, more deeply buried.

He stretched, slowly, forcing his muscles to relax. Feeling his age for
the first time, the passing of an era enough to remind him of his own
mortality.

The evening had started normally enough. He'd left the office at six,
paperwork completed on time; well that made a change, Scott
Henderson getting his finger out for once. Then home. Forty minutes
on a choked South Circular, frozen meal in the microwave; as routine
as the office. Just another of the rigidly defined compartments of his
life.

Another Friday night spent alone, nothing but the TV and a glass of
Scotch for company. Even with cable, Friday night telly was rubbish;
chat shows, inane quizzes and more gardening advice than anyone
would reasonably want in one lifetime. He watched them all with half
an eye, their blandness smoothing over his hectic week.

Nine o'clock, and a second, and third Scotch, came and went before he
switched over to BBC1. Then, Peter Sissions, bizarrely cast as his own
personal Mnemosyne, calmly shattered his day.

...Lord Cowley, former head of CI5 died today at his Kensington home. George
Cowley, an ex-army major, formed CI5 in...

He let the newsreader's voice trail away, though his mind picked out words
and phrases without conscious effort - 'A-Squad', 'terrorism', 'Bodie'.

He'd somehow expected the old bastard would find a way to live
forever. Cowley had been a block of Scottish granite built solidly into
the fabric of the British security services. He'd survived changes in
government, in policy, even in the world order after the fall of the Berlin
Wall. Somehow Burnside had thought him immortal.

George Cowley. An old, old friend. Was friend the right word? Frank
considered it. Cowley had guided his career for years. His career and more.
All the good times, and the bad, found their way back to George Cowley.
Friend? He'd never been sure. Still couldn't be.

He looked up from his glass; the fading afterimage of Cowley's picture
now overlaid with Suzanne Charlton's weather report. Piercing grey
eyes suddenly unfocussed, clouded with unexpected emotion.

He pondered on the report. It'd been short, considering the Commander's
role in the Cold War. But that was just like the man. Small, understated,
aggressive only when he had to be; when it served a purpose.

'Survived by a niece.' That was what Sissions had said. Yeah, and
all his CI5 'children', men and women whose lives he'd shaped or shattered.
At least by all those who'd lived through that baptism of fire, bombs and
automatic weapons.

They'd all loved him in their own way and hated him in equal measure.

For nearly two years he'd been one of Cowley's children, one of the
first of that exclusive club. Plucked from a promising career in the
force by a Controller who was looking for people with certain skills,
certain connections in the underworld. And he had plenty of those,
half of his mates had found their way into gangs by then. Three
months of training in the fledgling CI5, nineteen of operational
excitement had been his reward. And then, well everything had
changed. Cowley was responsible for that too.

He lifted the glass of Glenfiddich in a simple toast to the old man.
Unsure as to whether it was sorrow he was feeling.

****

He'd always thought of himself as a 'mans man' funny how that'd turned out
to be true - though not in the way anyone, including himself, would have
suspected.

Right from the start he and Ray Doyle had clicked. They had the same
sort of background. Rough upbringings on the fringes of urban council
estates, a little trouble with the law early on, helped out of gang life by
understanding relations - an uncle in Ray's case, paternal grandfather
in his. Back then the line between copper and villain had been thin, it
was just a matter of chance, and interfering relatives, which side you
ended up on. To the amazement of his family he'd ended up, on the
side of law and order, at the Metropolitan Police Training School in
Hendon.

Hendon trained them in technique, procedure and discipline in just the same
way as borstal and slags like the Krays trained their boys. Ten weeks, that
was all you got back then, ten weeks of basic then you
were in at the deep end. Puppy walked, true, but responsible for the
law all the same. Those were the days when the public still looked
up to the bobby on the beat, respected the uniform, however young
the wearer looked.

He and Ray had met in the meal queue, caught up in a litany of mutual
complaints that the food was probably better 'inside'. He'd been a
cocky kid back then, Jack the Lad on his own manor, used to being
the centre of attention. But now, for the first time, he had competition.
Ray Doyle was something else; smart, quick, and outgoing enough to make
Frank feel like the new kid in town. And handsome too, back
before the attack. A few drinks, a practical joke or three and they'd
got on like a house on fire.

They were teamed together from the beginning. Frank's practicality
balancing Ray's instinct. Ray's explosive temper moderated by the
calm good humour of his friend. There were rumours about Ray,
even from the first day, rumours Frank chose to ignore, that Ray had
slashed someone in anger. And that the 'someone' had been a jealous
boyfriend. Frank thought it was all pretty unlikely. The Met would never
have taken him if he was really a poof. The law had only just changed
to make it legal and any copper with those tendencies would still be
open to blackmail. Besides Ray dated girls like it was going out of
fashion, another area where Frank struggled to compete.

Two months passed in no time. Friendships formed that would last a
lifetime, enemies were made too. Relationships which would influence
the Met. for years to come.

Late on in the training they covered sex crimes. It was harrowing and
disturbing for all concerned and the tutors promised, with their usual
sick sense of humour, some respite on the last day. But it was a lie.
The last day was just as bad as the previous one, for all sorts of
reasons.

Pornography. There'd been jokes since the timetable went up. Some
wag had even put boxes of tissues on all the seats before they started.
But, for the most part it hadn't been what they'd expected. Of course
there'd been the usual straight stuff with its preposterous plots, and
huge breasts. Most of it was legal, and not really offensive to anyone
but the most rabid of campaigners. It had been the other material which had
shocked the trainees. None of them had really been prepared for the S&M,
bestiality and child porn that they were shown. Ribald, crude jokes gave
way to expressions of disgust. The uncomfortable shifting in their seats
not due to any arousal only the urgent need to be somewhere else.

Frank had thought himself immune to all of it, able to record, analyse,
with an objective eye. Looking back he realised how naïve he'd been
and how arrogant. The early material had shocked and sickened him, though
his natural bravado made him cover it up. But it was the scenes from the
gay movies that finally got to him.

They'd been nothing special. Just a short illustration of what was, and
wasn't legal. But it'd been enough. Arousal hit him as hard as a double
Scotch on an empty stomach.  He needed to look somewhere else, anywhere
else. Fate dealt him Ray Doyle sitting less than two feet away.

Ray was calm, collected, sketching one of the 'actors' on his pad. He
caught Frank's eye, deliberately, took in the flushed cheeks, the notepad
clutched in a death grip in his lap, and smiled, just a small smile
conveying total understanding. He looked away, outlining a slim hip in hard
black biro.

And afterwards? Well afterwards, the class resorted to the standard
police method of dealing with difficult situations. They went out and got
seriously pissed.

Eleven o'clock found a group of Hendon's 'most promising' trainees
in one of the second storey bedrooms, sprawled on the floor, passing
a bottle of cheap scotch between them.

It was Tommy 'Bomber' Harris who started it. Voicing opinions that'd
been on all their minds for hours, lighting the tension with crude jokes,
gallows humour. Finally he'd staggered to his feet, slurring drunkenly.

"Them blokes weren't anything special. I'm bigger than any of them.
'Ere I'll show you"

Oblivious to the ribaldry around him Harris unzipped his jeans and...exposed
himself to comment.

"Need a magnifying glass to see that, mate. What you need is one of these."
George Layton, tall, black and decidedly unashamed of his attributes, made
to show them exactly what he had in his strides.

The evening was turning rapidly into a crude game of  'you show me yours'.
Frank flashed again to the scene from that last movie, college boys playing
the same game, slim, hard bodies sheened with sweat.
Hot, flushed, mind unable to separate the real from the fantasy for a
moment, he felt the arousal start as a low burn, a tingle of excitement
in his stomach. He didn't want this, not here, not now, but his body,
egged on by his subconscious, had other ideas.

There was a moments panic, deep breaths which didn't help at all.
Deep breaths which just seemed to make the situation worse. So, pretending
to be more drunk than he really was, he made an excuse
and left.

"If all you can do is show each other your dicks I'm off to bed. Rather
not have to look at any of you ugly buggers anyway."

It was as much bravado as his earlier coolness in the film room and
didn't go unnoticed by his closest friend.

He hadn't gone back to his room and he'd taken the bottle with him,
hoping the alcohol would blunt the images that were still swimming like
mermen through his brain; strange and alluring. Instead, he sat on the
terrace outside the accommodation block, stonework cold against his
back, lit a fag and took a shaky drag at it. The rhythmic inhale-exhale of
the smoke did nothing to calm his nerves.

Gradually, through half closed eyes, he registered the presence of
another man.

"Anything left in that bottle?" Doyle slid down the wall beside him, a
brief touch of warmth in the chill night.

"Yeah, just came out to have a smoke." Somehow he felt he had to
justify being here, rather than tucked up in bed.

Doyle brushed his hand as he took the bottle. It could have been
accidental. But then again.

"Really got to you today didn't it?"

"What?" In his slight alcoholic haze the warmth of Ray's arm against
his seemed far more important than the question.

"All those naked bodies." There was a hint of humour in Ray's voice.
"The blokes I mean." He took the cigarette from his friend's fingers;
put it to his own lips in a move that was almost a caress.

"I'm not a bloody nance!"

He'd lost it completely then. Struggling to his feet, swaying in the
booze induced head rush, he hit out. Seconds later he had Ray pinned
to the wall, fist in the slimmer man's face, angry and threatening. It
never occurred to him at the time how easy it'd been to get Ray
against the wall; though later it was almost all he could remember.
He'd expected, wanted even, a fight, some way to clear his head, to
lose it all in mindless violence. He wasn't prepared for the kiss, Ray's
mouth on his, as forceful as the punch he'd been expecting. And there,
just for one second of madness, he'd returned it, aroused beyond
comprehension.

It was like vertigo washing over him, but worse, much worse. He was dizzy,
head pounding , his mouth dry. His body wanted it, wanted to
give in to those hot, passionate kisses. But his mind,  the prejudices
of his class and gender, fought him every step of the way. Mind finally
overriding body; he walked away.

The next morning it was like it never happened. Ray didn't mention it
and, caught up in conflicting emotions, neither did Frank. Not that he
didn't think about it, especially after dark in the privacy of his room.

They stayed friends, but it was a changed friendship because of the
secret between them and once they were assigned to different stations
contact dwindled away from occasional meetings to nothing in a matter
of months.

Over the next few years Frank Burnside had learned a lot about life.
Well, more specifically, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll and more besides.
Tart's who'd do it for nothing just to avoid another arrest, the regular
resale of drugs evidence, the persuasive techniques used on suspects and
more besides. Two years in the Met. took more of his innocence
than the streets had managed in the previous twenty. The carefree lad
changed became cynical and hard; the job demanded nothing less.

Then when he thought he'd forgotten the events of Hendon there'd
been a restructuring of the Met. He'd been posted to Stepney Green
in the East End and back to Ray Doyle. This time it was different. He'd
seen a bit of life by then, learned to appreciate comfort, relief from the
stresses of the job from whatever quarter it was offered. And Ray
offered.

It hadn't been a grand passion for Ray. But for Frank, well that was a
different matter. It'd been the first time he'd let anyone inside his
carefully built defences, the first time he'd cared or wanted someone
to care about him in years. And he'd ended up getting burned. And
even now, more than twenty five years later he could only hate. Hated Bodie
for taking Ray away from him and Cowley for encouraging it.

It'd been a complicated business. They'd been close, managed to keep
it secret, amazing that, and of course they hadn't really managed as
well as they thought.

For Frank it was a revelation, a whirling storm of green eyed passion, a
drive to pleasure which sex with women didn't come close to. However
enthusiastic women were they couldn't match the skills of someone who knew
just what it felt like.

It lasted more than a year. It was more than simple friendship, though
both of them shied away from talking of anything deeper. There wasn't
a way in those days.

August the seventeenth a date etched into his brain like an acid burn.
The hottest summer in years. Hot in more ways than one. Industrial
action, social unrest and political bickering stretched the police to their
limits in London. He should have been there, would have been if his
grandfather hadn't died suddenly in his sleep. Eighty four, a good
innings considering. So, instead of being on the front line against the
National Front that afternoon, Frank had been ten miles away at Hither
Green Cemetery in Catford.

Ray should have had someone he trusted to watch his back not timid Barry
Hudson. But it could have been worse, maybe it was. Hudson
had died of his injuries. Ray just had his jaw, cheekbone and four ribs
broken. Just! As if that temporary destruction of body and confidence
hadn't been enough.

Frank didn't see him until three days later. By that time the doctors
had given up trying to repair the smashed bone in his face and
replaced it with a curve of plastic. Ray had been all too aware of
that flaw, Frank too aware of his failure to be there for his lover.
Between the guilt and the pain they met, rowed and finally parted.
It came down to pride and stubbornness on both sides. Each caught
up in their own fear of mortality they were unable to let the other help
them heal.

It was then George Cowley approached him. Cowley became his anchor offering
a military stability, a way of dealing with the fear through
training. He'd taken the job without question, going undercover almost
immediately after training.

Spring of the following year found Frank in Birmingham in Midland's
gang who were using boxing and dog fighting as a means of siphoning money
into Middle Eastern terrorism.

Later Cowley had head-hunted Ray too. But he hadn't known, not until
that day at the reservoir, not until it was too late.

Present

Typical copper, he went through the crowd at the funeral service from
back to front looking for faces he knew; detailing lives, loves and
crimes with a objective eye. On the left the ministers, civil servants,
those who'd come out of respect, or to gloat that they'd outlived their
tormentor. On the right, in a parody of a wedding ceremony, the
'groom's family'. CI5 agents past and present. Even after all these
years he recognised Anson, balding now but with the tell tale cigar
sticking out of his top pocket. Betty and Jax, finally, now the
disapproval of mixed marriages was a thing of the past, able to acknowledge
their relationship. Chris Murphy, head of his own security firm, tall, slim
frame encased in a very fashionable Paul Smith suit.
He was conscious of gaps too; death and madness had claimed far too many of
Cowley's children in the intervening years.

The scan up the aisle had taken minutes or no time at all, depending
on where you were, or weren't, trying to get to. Instinctively he'd known
where they were and shunned it. The unpalatable truth too much to
face at such an emotional gathering. Finally, eyes slipping over the
bowed red head of Cowley's niece, he let his steel grey gaze touch
them.

Truth be told, he hadn't known what to expect. A glance in the mirror
that morning had shocked him. How long had he been completely
grey? For a moment his own face had been that of a stranger, an
older relative. He was scared to look at 'them' now unsure he could
face the changes of age and stress.

He started with the easier challenge, Bodie, Cowley's successor, the
current Head of CI5. The years had been kind. Frank scowled. Apart
from a slight thickening round the waistline Bodie barely showed his
fifty years. Everything about him radiated confidence. The man had a
natural arrogance that chancers like Rod Skase wouldn't manage to
learn in a month of Sundays.

Frank looked away. Focussed on the coffin on its oak stand, the simple
arrangement of flowers over the heart of the body beneath. He stayed there
for a while, half listening to the sermon, the witterings of
officialdom. Finally, the last hymn, a last chance, he looked back.

Ray Doyle. He swallowed. Even greying, bowed in grief, Ray looked
good. Charcoal grey suit, like the cinders in Burnside's heart, long soft
curls clasped at his neck in a silver clip. He was more famous than his
partner now. A celebrity photographer, the darling of the chattering
classes. But Frank had no eyes for what Ray Doyle was now, only
what he had been back in those hot seventies summers.

Even now, in the liberal 90's a funeral was the only place men of their
generation could touch in public, a comforting hand on the shoulder,
a brief hug was all that was permitted. As he watched, defying tradition
Bodie's square fingered hand covered his partner's on the back of the pew.
Frank caught a glimpse of a heavy gold ring on Bodie's hand, a symbol of
their commitment to each other.

As the hymn swelled to its final verse he closed his eyes against their
closeness, lost for a brief moment in memories.

The last time he'd seen Ray had been at the reservoir. After they'd
got that nutter Nesbitt. And it'd been like he didn't exist. Ray's eyes
had passed over him, no more important than the R/T or the gun he
was holding. Less important in fact. There was barely an acknowledgement
that they'd even met before. Ray only had eyes
for his new partner, Bodie.

Ironically, they'd got their man while he lost his. He'd watched them,
heads together, drying each other off, touching, warm in their private
world, oblivious, in love maybe even then.

The water set like ice around his heart.

Cowley caught his eye. Understanding? He couldn't be sure until the
older man spoke.

"Leave them laddie. You'd better get me back to the office. The Minister
will be waiting."

Later, after the case was tied up, reports written, he'd been called
into the Controller's office. Betty had brought tea without being asked,
always a bad sign, or at least that's how the office gossip went.

"Sit down, lad, don't wear the carpet out."

"Sir?"

"I don't think CI5 is the best place for you right now." He paused hard
blue eyes softened in sympathy. "I've been reviewing your file.
I know you and Doyle were 'close' in the past."

And they thought they'd been so careful. Should have known you
couldn't get anything past George Cowley.

"I'm sorry Burnside, I don't want him to have any distractions, any
'conflicts of interest' as the politicians say. They're going to be my best
team. They have...an understanding already." Cowley had paused here, unsure
as to whether the younger man was really taking this all in.
This sort of thing was never easy but George Cowley was a practical
man at heart. For all his personal understanding of the situation he
had to put the squad first, the country depended on it. He carried on,
made the best offer he could in the circumstances.

"I need something else from you, a different assignment, if you like.
I need contacts in the services, especially in the police force."
He paused again. Frank nodded, bitter understanding already
etched on his face.

And that had been that. Posted back to the Met., Cowley's man on the
inside. It'd got him where he was today, DCI in Serious Crimes, able to
work in his own idiosyncratic way without interference, as long as it got
results. For most of those years CI5 had got copies of every useful file,
tapes of vital interviews, even first crack at certain suspects. He'd been
loyal to his past and to his 'family'.

But, for all those years there'd been a hole in his life like an open
grave. "It was better to have loved and lost..." Bollocks! Nothing should
ever hurt like this.

He took out a creased picture, Ray Doyle and him at some summer training
course, shirt sleeves, arms round each other, grinning at the camera like
loonies. He remembered the radio being on - The Ballad of John and Yoko,
the beginning of the end for the Beatles.

As the coffin was lifted for its final journey he turned away, face hard
with grief, tiredness, what could have, should have, been.

Then he did something he should have done years ago. Stepping up
to the graveside, he crumpled the photo, dropped it into the open void
and walked away.

******