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It’s Trewlove, who catches her sneaking out of the house to the bus station, the policewoman’s soft, clear voice calling, “Bit early for that isn’t it?”
Joan jumps like a rabbit.
Trewlove smiles sadly and gestures to Joan’s suitcase. “Surely after braving bank robbers you’re not running away now, are you?”
And Joan, despite herself, begins to cry. “How can I stay, when it was all my fault?” She half expects Trewlove to coddle her like her mother would, wrapping her up in a blanket and a hug, fixing her a cuppa. Or at least telling her it’s not her fault and that it will get better, like her father.
“That’s selfish of you,” is what Trewlove says.
Joan’s so surprised the crying nearly stops. “What do you mean? Of course I was selfish. Morse told me to give Marlock a wide berth, but I wouldn’t. And now people are dead.”
“It’s selfish of you to think that you’re the only one who’s been through an ordeal; it’s selfish of you to claim all the guilt.” Trewlove tips her prim little chin up, and Joan can almost hate her, until she keeps talking. “How do you think Morse feels, being a detective constable on the scene when it happened, but not being able to stop it? Don’t you think he blames himself for your friend’s death? After all, if he hadn’t been there, it likely wouldn’t have happened. How do you think I felt, watching my friend shot in front of me, knowing if I had only been the one to take that car, he would still be alive – and him a family!”
Clenching her jaw, Joan looks away. She hadn’t considered that, hadn’t really felt like she’d had a moment to consider it anyway. She’d just felt so…trapped. Still.
“All my life,” she whispers, “I’ve been Detective Inspector Thursday’s daughter, coddled and protected and kept from what the world really is. No man would dare to come within a mile of me, not for any real fun, so I snuck out one night – but I was still only out with Jakes.”
“Bit of a rake though, or so I’ve heard,” Trewlove teases.
Joan’s lips twitch up too. “Yeah, I had to smack him for getting fresh, and then Morse showed up and–” She cuts herself off there. The less she thinks about Morse, the better. “But in the end, he was still my father’s sergeant. He was still a decent man. Not like those–those–” She swallows. “Not like those villains at the bank. I suppose that’s why I kept indulging Marlock. I was flattered, and it felt rebellious, like I was just any other worldly girl. I thought I knew what I was doing. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know because I’ve been kept away from the real world my entire life. And I can’t live like that anymore. I’ll suffocate!”
“So what is it you’re really after then?”
Joan shakes her head. “I don’t – I don’t know. Room to breathe? A chance to become a woman instead of a coddled child?”
Trewlove snorts. “If that’s your goal, this seems an odd way to go about it.”
“Excuse me?”
But the woman is digging through her handbag. “Only coddled children run away from their problems. If you want to be anyone different than who you have been, you’ve got to stay here and face up to what’s happened.” She produces a cigarette and a lighter, which shocks Joan the tiniest bit. “Here, have a smoke.” Joan takes the cigarette being foisted upon her for lack of any better alternative, and inhales obediently when it’s lit. “There. Now buck up, you’ll be alright.” And with a firm pat on the shoulder, Trewlove passes on to write more parking tickets.
When Morse finds her, she’s still standing on the sidewalk, smoking her cigarette and staring out at the world unseeing. It’s the car door slamming that jolts her out of it, and Joan looks up in time to see him scrabble up on the sidewalk with a near frantic, “Miss Thursday!”
She wonders with a pang if he’s here because her father sent him out to find her.
But she supposes that Trewlove’s right, and that facing up to things means also facing up to her unrequited feelings for Morse like an adult instead of trying to make him jealous like an air-headed teenager. So she looks up at him from where she sits on her suitcase and smiles a little cynically. “I think after the ordeal at the bank, you’re entitled to call me Joan, Morse.”
“Joan,” he says, breathless. “Miss Thur— Joan— I…I have something to… I must–” He smiles self-deprecatingly and rubs the back of his neck. Joan pretends she doesn’t notice how good he looks in his jumper. How delightfully normal. “I must sound mad, mustn't I?”
It’s annoying, how impossibly fond of this sweet, awkward man she is. “No more mad than I sounded when I tried to explain myself to Constable Trewlove this morning, I assure you.”
He seems to take in her suitcase for the first time with a frown, as if he’s been personally offended by it. “You’re leaving? But you can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
He searches for words a second. “Your parents! You mean the world to them, and—” He stops again. Sucks in a breath. “You mean the world.” It’s clearly not what he was building up to, but there’s an edge of desperation to it that threatens to break her heart.
She twists her gloves in her hands. “But it’s not enough to mean the world to someone, is it? They have to make room for you, in their world. And I’ve realized that my father hasn’t. He’s never shared his world with us; it’s enough that we hardly see him, but now I feel I hardly know him. That I hardly know the world itself anymore.”
“He was just trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection,” she can’t help but snap. “I need to be seen. I need to be a person allowed to have a real life in a real world.” She might leave anyway, despite what Trewlove said. Starting over somewhere she can be her own person sounds like the only path to salvaging her sanity. But she has reconsidered leaving like this, without a word of her going or where she’s going to. She can be her own person and still have her parents call or come up for a visit once a quarter, surely?
Morse, who looked a little dumbstruck at her declaration, suddenly starts to life again. “ I see you. I saw you during the robbery and everything – you were so brave. And clever. I’ve always seen you. And maybe I didn’t understand what that meant to me until now. Maybe I’m the last person in the world you want to see you, Joan, but – but when I saw that gun pointed at your head all I could think about was how unbearable the world would be without you in it. I doubt I should say it, so one word from you will silence me on the subject forever, but…I love you. I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a while now. So it won’t only be unbearable for your parents if you leave Oxford, but me too. And now you know that, I’ll leave you to make your own decisions about what’s best for you, Miss Thursday.”
He turns while the world’s still spinning around her, but she jumps to her feet as the car door slams and he drives away. Morse, Morse loves her. Stunned, she sinks back down on her suitcase. Shame Trewlove didn’t leave her two cigarettes.
By the time she’s trudged home, her father is on the doorstep, panicking. “Joanie!” he roars, “What were you thinking, leaving home in the middle of the night like this!”
She puts her suitcase down and lifts her chin. “I’m a grown woman, dad. And it’s time I start acting like one. So I’ve come home, because I don’t want to leave like a petulant child. But I don’t want to be coddled. I want room for a fresh start. And to be someone more than just Inspector Thursday’s daughter.” To avoid fidgeting under her father’s hard gaze, she lifts the cigarette to her lips again, even though it’s mostly fizzled out and she’s decided she doesn’t much care for smoking.
Her father catches the cigarette, and, as his eyes follow it, his whole demeanor shifts. “Right then. Best come in before your mother’s up.”
She stares at him, surprised. But he opens the door and motions her to go in ahead of him. So she does.
What Joan doesn’t do is unpack her suitcase. Instead, she sets it on her bed and takes off her hat and gloves. She eats an awkwardly silent breakfast with her parents. And then, giving her mother and father both a parting kiss, she goes back up for her hat.
Morse looks stunned when she turns up on his doorstep. He’s got an opera going and looks like he’s already poured himself a drink, despite it hardly being a quarter to ten. Blinking rapidly, Joan swallows down the guilt for what her running away clearly would have done to this dear, good man. Truelove was right. It was selfish of her to consider leaving without even saying a proper goodbye.
Well, time to set it right. “Good morning again, Morse.”
“Miss Thursday!” He blinks. “Joan!” The way his eyebrows crinkle when he’s surprised has always delighted her. It’s why she teases him so.
In her sternest tone she demands, “It has come to my attention that you claim to love me, is that correct?”
“Yes,” he answers slowly, like she’s the police and he’s a suspect.
“Did this feeling just emerge yesterday?”
Now he’s indignant. “Of course not!”
“Well then, why on earth have you not said or done anything when I’ve been flirting with you for the past year!”
He stumbles back a bit, gaping rather fishlike and overall sounding like she’s just taken a cricket bat to his face. “What?”
Joan blinks. “What do you mean, what?”
“Flirting?”
“Obviously. Then when that didn’t work, I tried to make you jealous, and look where that got me! And all you did was lecture me like my father would!”
He’s turning a bit purple now, and she wonders if she should take him to hospital. He and her father have a nasty habit of getting themselves shot, etc. and maybe this is a chronic side-effect of a previous injury.
“Jealous!” He explodes, a bit high pitched but with more passion than she’s ever seen from him before in her life. “Jealous! That was you trying to make me jealous, was it? Well fine job of that. You needn’t have bothered though, I’ve been suppressing jealousy since Jakes took you dancing. I thought you’d be horrified if – Jealous?” He takes a breath and collects himself. “It’s a terrible cliche, you know, the bagman being in love with the inspector’s daughter. It’s against all propriety. I thought you’d be offended if you knew. After all, who am I to have a chance with you? I can’t even make full detective!”
Joan tilts her chin up like she did when confronting her father this morning. She almost wishes she still had a cigarette to have something to do with her hands. “And why not? You’re the most brilliant detective this dusty old town’s ever seen. Dad says the rest of it is just politics. Anyway, you’re also the most honorable man I’ve ever met, clearly, if this was your reason for holding back.”
Morse scratches the back of his head. “Well that and the fact that I never considered you could be flirting with me. I mean really flirting, not just trying to see how much you could embarrass me.”
“Well that’s a misunderstanding cleared up then. Do you still have the car?”
“Yes.” And there’s his detective's suspicion.
“Good. You can drive me around to look for a new position then. If I can find something interesting and that will pay me enough, I’ll take lodgings here in Oxford. If not, I’ll have to look elsewhere.” She gives him a glance that says he’s supposed to respond to that with the question she knows he must have.
Morse, brilliant as he is, doesn’t disappoint. “Could I come down weekends for a visit, even if you move outside Oxford?”
Joan turns to hide her smile. “Perhaps. Depending on how good a chauffeur you are.”
He opens her car door with a flourish. “Well, I can say that I have a knack for finding affordable lodgings, if that helps.”
“Hmm. Well let's put those skills to use, detective.” And this time, she’s fairly certain he understands the full implications behind her sly smile. And by the way his ears go red, he plans to be the perfect gentleman despite it. That’s fine. They’re both still reeling from yesterday, and it really is so delicious to see how far she can push him until he gives in and admits she’s embarrassed him.
It’s only after her implication that the best way to save money on rent would be to split it with him that he cracks, with a scandalized but endearing, “Miss Thursday!” She gives him a peck on the cheek for his trouble.