'Black and White' - The White Bridge Crime Series 2 - LGBT, manXman

2

"Dom, can you take these files down to personnel for me? I still have a bucket load of paperwork to finish."

"Nope." Dom Marafioti grinned cheerfully at his partner. "I've got to go home and have a fantastic meal and wild anniversary sex."

Rex Barnett scowled.

"Rub it in, why don't you." He grumbled, before sighing. "What anniversary is it?"

"Five years since our first date," Dom said happily. "Aidy's making... something I can't pronounce."

Rex snorted.

"You're a disappointment to all Italians," he said. "I thought you were all supposed to be good at cooking."

"Common misconception," Dom said easily. "We're all good at eating. Not all of us can cook."

Dom smirked, locked his desk and pulled on his jacket.

"See you tomorrow, pal."

"'Friad not, Dom."

Their boss, DCI Peter Cole, came into the incident room, holding a thin report folder.

"We've just had a call in. Uniformed officers were called to 17 Dover Way an hour ago after a neighbour reported screaming. They thought it was a burglary in process, but they discovered a body inside. They called us, and you two were next in line for the case."

"It's my anniversary, boss." Dom wheedled gently. "Aidy's cooking."

Cole had experience Adrian Sloan's cooking enough times over the years to understand a meal by him wasn't easily passed down.

Cole saw the gleam in Dom's eye and sighed.

"Fine. Go have food and kinky sex. And come back tomorrow ready to work twice as hard, you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

Dom shot Rex a triumphant look and slipped out of the door before Cole could change his mind.

"Can you handle the preliminary look-see by yourself, or should I call Turner in?" Cole asked.

Barnett shook his head.

"I can manage," he said wearily. "Probably just a burglary gone wrong, right?"

"Let's hope so. Half of my detectives are tied up finishing off paperwork from the arson case last week."

Barnett winced.

An arsonist had set fire to a secondary school, killing seventeen pupils and four teachers before escaping down a fire escape.

They'd caught him the day before, only to have him hang himself in the cells two hours after they'd finished interviewing him.

"I suppose it's some relief to the families," Rex said quietly. "But he still got away lightly."

Cole shrugged.

"It's not our job to decide that, Barnett. You know that."

"I know... it's just hard, sometimes, to feel sorry for the bastards."

Rex locked his desk, pulled on his jacket, and left the police station.

He drove across to the other side of town, where the sight of two marked police car and a white coroner's van greeted him outside the victim's home.

Further down the road, two PC's had put up crime scene tape to keep back the journalists who'd already gathered, despite the late hour.

Ignoring the flashing of the cameras and the shouted questions, Barnett went up to the front door and stepped inside.