‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Owen. ‘If I had a drink…’ He looked up.
Half six. The small, cellar bar off the Quay was filling up. A herd of suits from investment firms, insurance brokers and the rest of Cardiff’s big, anonymous plcs were flooding into the watering hole.
‘I’ll help Jack with the drinks,’ Gwen said, getting up. James watched her disappear into the crowd.
He looked back at Toshiko and Owen. They were smiling at him.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’
‘Need a hand?’ Gwen called over the chatter.
‘Thanks,’ said Jack, turning to hand back a couple of drinks from the bar. He waited for the barman to bring him his change.
‘More to your liking?’ Gwen asked.
‘What?’
‘Today. Performance more to sir’s liking, was it, then?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think we did all right.’
‘What, are you writing your own pep talk now?’
‘Ha ha,’ she said. ‘Look, there’s something up, isn’t there?’
‘Come again?’
‘There’s something up. More than just this last weekend.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Oh, I dunno. My “tall, dark and brooding” detector’s been going off more than usual.’
‘Your what now?’
‘You. You’ve been standing around looking a lot more enigmatic and windswept these last few days. A real look of destiny on your face.’
‘What can I say? I’m working on the image. I hope to have the full-on Heathcliff by Christmas.’
‘OK,’ she chuckled. They edged their way back to the booth with the drinks. ‘But you’d tell me if there was something, wouldn’t you?’ she asked.
‘Do I usually keep you in the loop?’ Jack asked.
‘No. Usually, you keep tons of stuff from us.’
‘Well, that’s not likely to change then, is it?’ Jack said with a toothpaste-ad grin. ‘Gwen, I know stuff. I know all sorts of stuff. I know stuff none of you need to be bothered with. The moment you do need to be bothered with it, I’ll tell you.’
‘Blimey,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Did we just have an actual need-to-know conversation?’
‘I think we did.’
‘Christ, now I feel like a proper secret agent.’
‘I’ll see if I can find you one.’
They delivered the drinks. One of the city types had loaded the jukebox with coins, and ‘Who Are You?’ blared across the cellar.
‘CSI,’ said Owen. ‘Can I get a transfer to them d’you think?’
Jack shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, you have to be a doctor.’
James snorted his beer. Toshiko patted Owen a ‘there, there’ on the arm. Gwen’s cell rang. She took it out, and switched it off.
‘Shouldn’t you answer that?’ Jack asked.
‘No,’ said Gwen, raising her drink. James glanced at her.
Jack set his half-finished glass of water down on the table. ‘Well, charming though this is, I have to be going.’
‘Lightweight,’ said Owen.
‘I’ve got a few things to do in the Hub,’ said Jack. ‘Tosh, did you finish those costings?’
‘Can I give them to you in the morning?’ she asked. ‘I still can’t shake this headache.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll walk you out,’ said Toshiko.
Left on their own, the other three sat there for a minute or two without speaking. Owen looked at Gwen, then at James, and then back at Gwen.
He shook his head. ‘I get it. See you tomorrow.’ He got to his feet. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he said.
‘That leaves us a lot of scope,’ said Gwen.
James waited until Owen had vanished into the bustle of suits, and then said, ‘Rhys has been calling you, hasn’t he?’
‘Yeah. It’s all right though.’
‘Are you going to talk to him?’
‘At some point.’
‘What will you say?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s why I said “at some point”. I don’t know yet.’
James nodded. ‘If this is difficult for you-’
‘Shush now.’
Over the din of voices, the jukebox flipped from ‘Who Are You?’ to ‘Coming Up For Air’.
Gwen smiled. ‘So, what shall we do?’ she asked.
‘Goodnight then,’ said Toshiko.
‘See you tomorrow,’ Jack replied. Toshiko hurried away through the dinner rush on the Quay. There was rain in the air. The illuminated windows and signs of the restaurant-bars formed a loud band of light and colour under the low night sky.
Jack walked to a quiet part of the rail facing out towards the Barrage. He took the black tile out of his coat pocket and studied it. The display was the same. Ominous. Ticking.
‘Need to know,’ Gwen had joked. Jack needed to know, and there was no one to ask.
Owen walked around the Bay to his apartment, and let himself in, the bag of takeout banging against his raised arm.
He put his wet coat on the back of a chair, and went into the kitchen to find a plate and a fork, and a beer from the fridge.
He felt wired and restless. A headache nagged behind his eyes. His bruised mouth was sore. He dished out the food, carried it into the lounge, and set it down on the table, the beer beside it. Then he headed into the bathroom to study his lip in the mirror.
The girl — Miss Tremendous Rack UK — had left a lipstick by the sink. He picked it up and idly twisted it.
He decided he really needed an aspirin. Heavy rain began to sheet against the windows of the flat.
NINE
The bedside alarm display glowed 01:00 in bright red digits. James was asleep.
Gwen got out of bed in the dark and padded into the lounge. The uplighters were still on. A filthy night swirled outside. She wondered where James kept the painkillers. She had a rubbish head again.
A huddle of framed photos sat along the top of a shelf unit, surrounding a plush ‘Andy’ that Toshiko had bought for James. They were all represented there: Toshiko, Owen, Ianto and herself, along with James. Various combinations, laughing, joking. None of Jack, of course, but then Jack was notoriously camera-shy. There were a few other shots of people she didn’t know. Parents, she supposed. Uncles. Siblings. James had a sister in Oxford, and a brother in London that he’d spoken of.
She picked up one picture of her, James and Toshiko. She couldn’t recall the exact circumstances in which it had been taken, but the subtle differences in haircuts and clothes suggested it was going back a while.
It made her feel strangely deprived. The albums back at her flat, the photos on the fridge door and the pinboard, none of them showed James or Owen or Toshiko. Just her, Rhys and various friends. She didn’t have the freedom to put up snaps of the team where Rhys could see them and ask who they were. Such was the divide between her domestic and work lives. The secret fold between two entirely different yet entirely real Gwen Coopers.
Except, she wondered, was that true any more? She’d lived a dual existence since joining Torchwood, but the older part of her was struggling to keep pace these days. It felt like the old Gwen, and the life-baggage she carried, was fading out, sloughing away like old skin. Her police career, her flat in Riverside, her relationship with Rhys; it was getting eclipsed. She’d always presumed — always been determined — to be both Gwens. She’d been happy with her lot, and had never intended to ditch it. But old stuff was slipping away and becoming irrelevant of its own accord.
That was a horrible word, she decided. Irrelevant. Cruel to think that. People moved on, that was organic, and you had to let things go sometimes. You had to let things go when you didn’t need them any more.