Disclaimer: I don't own Ashes to Ashes. If I did, it would have had a happy ending, and I wouldn't have needed to wrote this story.

Sorry for my long silence, one and all – in response to a number of requests I'm working on a sequel to "The Return", but broke off to do this angsty two-shot which wouldn't leave me alone until I'd written it. It's taken me some time to write due to real life issues, not least health (dental) problems). Anyway, here's Chapter 1, and I'll post Chapter 2 as soon as I can, hopefully next weekend.

Shortage of time is also why I'm about a month behind on reading and reviewing everyone else's fics. Sorry again – I hope to have an orgy of R&R'ing during the summer.

"True" was composed by Gary Kemp and performed by Spandau Ballet. As A2A lovers know.

As always, please let me know what you think!

Wendy: Fancy your forgetting the lost boys, and even Captain Hook!

Peter: Well, then?

Wendy: I haven't seen Tink this time.

Peter: Who?

Wendy: Oh, dear! I suppose it comes of your having so many adventures.

Peter (relieved): 'Course it is.

- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Gene Hunt considered that life had been relatively good to him. There had always been things to learn, adventures to have, coppers to train, scum to catch, companions to booze with after hours, whisky in the cabinet and fags in his pocket. He didn't ask for more. There had never been any close friendships that he could remember, but he judged that relationships brought complications and were best avoided. New recruits joined his team, invariably complaining like good 'uns about their unexpected transfers, sorted out the personal issues that had dogged them, became the coppers that they should be, and were dispatched to the pub when their time came. Replacements always came along sooner or later. He had seen so many go through the door of The Railway Arms, that he couldn't remember the names or faces of any of those who had preceded his current team, even the ones whom he supposed must once have been important to him. He'd been in this job a long time. There was so much that he couldn't remember, after all these years. It was easier that way.

There were a few reminders of his unremembered past. He could not recall, now, why a old silver metal epaulette number 6620 should lie on the top of his filing cabinet, but he kept it there nonetheless, just as the same numbers were carved into one of the desks in the CID office and he would not allow them to be removed. Something at the back of his mind told him that it was important, although he no longer knew why. There were always more important things to think about, such as finding the scum who had blagged the sub-post office in Kirton Street, or deciding what to risk eating at Chung Ling Soo's Chop Suey House across the road at beer o'clock. Probably because of its proximity to the station, with its ready-made clientele, the building opposite had always been a restaurant, although it had changed hands many times, and over the years Gene and his team had faced an after-hours diet of fish and chips, Indian, Malaysian, Turkish, and now Chinese. There had been a vegetarian restaurant, but it had not lasted long: Gene had seen to that. He dimly recollected that there had been an Italian restaurant, once upon a time.

Another constant in his existence, was that one of his recruits always stayed in the top floor flat above the restaurant, and that the flat below it remained empty and locked. He had paid the rent on it, time out of mind, to keep it as it had always been. The payment was on standing order, and he had forgotten why he had started paying it in the first place, just that he always had. The matter was raised one evening, when he informed Mr Soo that the tenant of the top floor flat had transferred at short notice and would not be requiring accomodation any longer.

The previous evening, following an outstandingly successful take-down of a major drug-running operation, instead of the usual piss-up at Mr Soo's, Gene had walked DS Keith Miller across London Bridge to a pub. The pub. Most of the time, to ordinary passers-by, its name was The Horseshoe. But on a night like this, when it was ready to welcome a new occupant, it was The Railway Arms, and its windows glowed with unearthly light. He had told Miller to go on in, said that he would follow soon, and had told him to set one up, and then stood, watching, while Miller walked up to the door, opened it, and disappeared from sight. As always, he had heard the sound of laughter and conversation as the door opened, mingled with the inevitable strains of Bowie. But this time, he had thought for a moment that he had heard something else: a woman's voice, crying out in despair. The impression had been so strong that he had looked all around, to see if anyone was about who needed assistance. But there had been nothing. He had satisfied himself that the area was quiet, and then gone on his way. As had happened before, he had been faintly tempted to go inside, but he had quickly shrugged the thought away. There would always be more coppers, needing him to teach them the way to go.

In Mr Soo's restaurant, he dragged his attention back to the matter in hand. "Yeah, Miller's transferred. Promotion. He's moving away. I'll get one of the team to clear the flat an' send 'is stuff on."

Mr Soo, like his predecessors, was used to the top floor tenants leaving at short notice. "Thank you for letting me know, Mr Hunt. I'll put an advertisement in the wndow."

"No need. His replacement's joining us soon. Coming from outside London, so 'e or she'll need somewhere to stay."

"Point taken. I'll keep it for them. By the way, Mr Hunt, do you still need the flat below it?"

"Come again?"

"The flat below Mr Miller's. It's been empty for years, since long before I came here."

"Yeah, I know, I pay the rent on that one. Not sure I remember why now. Who was the last occupant? I've never lived there."

"I've no idea offhand, Mr Hunt, but I'll get the old tenancy ledgers out and check for you. I have a complete set in the office, going back to the 1980s. That flat's been locked ever since I came here. You have the key."

"Have I?" Gene fished a bunch of keys from his pocket. "Any idea which one?"

"No idea, just looking at them, but wait a moment." Mr Soo disappeared into his living quarters and returned with a key and a stack of ledgers. "This is the key to that flat from my set. Compare it with yours, while I look at the books."

Gene checked his keys, one by one, until he found the twin to Mr Soo's. "This is it, next to the key to my desk." He handed the spare back. "Better keep that one. You've never been in there, then?"

"Oh, no. Mr Omar, my predecessor, told me that you were very emphatic that nobody but yourself was to go in, just as Mr Ramsami told him. Goodness knows what it must be like in there. Probably full of dust and spiders." He was turning over the pages of a ledger as he spoke.

Gene frowned. "Now, why should I have said that? Have I ever been in there?"

"No idea, Mr Hunt, but if you don't need it any more, you could save yourself a lot of money on the rent."

"An' you could get yourself another tenant. Any joy on finding the last occupant?"

"Not yet. This is the ledger for 1986, and you were paying the rent then. 1985 - still you, 1984 - ah!"

"Found something?"

"Yes, here. In 1984 the flat was occupied by one Alex Drake. You started paying the rent in November of that year."

"Alex Drake? Don't remember the name. He must 'ave been on my team at the time."

"She."

"Eh?"

"Look here." Mr Soo placed the ledger in front of Gene. "This signature. Alexandra Drake."

"Oh." A spark at the back of Gene's brain told him that he should recall the name, but it died for lack of fuel. He pushed his plate away. "Thanks for the chow mein, though I'd swear in court that you put old rubber tyres in it to spin out the meat. I'll go up an' take a look at that flat this evening. I'll let you know if I don't want it, an' then you can get it cleared out."

"Thanks, Mr Hunt. No worries, take your time."

-oO0Oo-

He unlocked the flat door, and it swung open with an eerie creak which advertised how long it had been, since anyone had oiled the hinges. On an impulse, he reached out for the light switch, and was surprised and gratified to find it straight away. As though he had known where it would be.

He closed the door and advanced cautiously into the flat. If it had not been for the thick layer of dust over everything, the tenant might only just have walked out a moment ago. The coffee table in the living room was loaded with empty bottles - God, this Drake bird must have been a heavy drinker - and the sofa cushions were disarranged, as though the last person to sit there had not straightened them and plumped them up before leaving. There was a sizeable television, with a Betamax video machine below it. How long had it been since he had seen one of those? The place was like the Sleeping Beauty's palace - although Gene grinned wryly at the thought of being the Prince Charming come to awaken it - or maybe an early 1980s time capsule, complete with blench-making décor.

Gene wandered around, switching on lamps, seeking clues about the personality of the woman who had lived here. One of his team had taught him all about that, he didn't remember whom. All that psychological profiling bollocks. It had been new back then, but it was all the thing now, so DI Shaun Astin was fond of telling him. He walked into the kitchen. Everything was clean and tidy, and all the crockery was washed and in the drainer. He didn't look in the larder or the fridge, but as he couldn't smell any rotting food, they might have been cleared before the flat was locked.

He moved on to the bedroom, raising an appreciative eyebrow at the double studio bed, surrounded by mirrors, with red silk sheets and matching red pillowcases and duvet. He moved a pillow, and found silky black pyjamas beneath. A black silk dressing gown hung on the back of the door. He opened the wardrobe, and found it full of tops and blouses in glowing colours, with several pairs of jeans and leggings and a number of pairs of high-heeled boots and shoes. At one end of the rail hung a short white fur coat, and beside it a red dress so short that he'd have been able to see what the wearer had for breakfast. Very distantly, something began to tug at his memory. To his confusion, at the other end of the rail hung a few old-fashioned mens' shirts, some of which were his size. Had he ever lived here? A subtle perfume pervaded his nostrils. He recognised it.

Closing the wardrobe, he moved on to the dressing table, which yielded an array of plastic jewellery, mostly earrings, a considerable amount of makeup, and a bottle of perfume. He unscrewed the cap and inhaled it deeply. He felt a right poof, but someone, probably that psychological profiler long ago, had told him that smell was one of the brain's strongest triggers of memory. It was the same as the perfume he had detected in the wardrobe. He knew that there had been a time when that scent had ruled his heart and his life. Alex Drake must have worn it. But what had she been to him?

He replaced the perfume bottle and returned to the living room. He spotted a notepad propped up on a shelf, and he picked it up and blew the dust from it. Someone had written on the top page:

ICU

Weather Vane

Rural

Dead Copper?

Gene

6620

Gene/Sam

Shaz

Stars

Was that about him, and why? What was all this about a dead copper, and stars? Who were Sam and Shaz? The only thing to which he could connect, was the number 6620. The person who had written this, presumably Alex Drake, had known about him and about the old epaulette number on his filing cabinet.

Notepad in hand, he perched cautiously on the striped sofa. Why had this place meant so much to him that he had been paying the rent for years to keep it sealed up, like some sort of shrine? Why could he not remember?

Suddenly, the television switched itself on. He had not touched the remote, which lay on top of the video recorder, and he could see that the TV was not plugged in. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, but he could not have moved to save his life.

The picture showed the interior of a pub, full of people, none of whom he recognised, drinking, relaxing, chatting. A glimpse of Nelson behind the bar confirmed that this must be the Railway Arms. He guessed that the occupants must all be coppers whom he had sent there when their time in his kingdom was done.

The tape on Nelson's sound system ended, and he changed it. After a few bars, a slim, extremely beautiful woman jumped to her feet with a strangled sob.

"No, Nelson, please, not that! I can't bear to hear it, please - "

"Sorry, Alex."

So, Gene thought, this must be the mysterious Alex Drake. Was she once on my team, then? It was hard to imagine that he could have forgotten a cracker like her working for him. Grade A Plus bodywork and chassis. If he could forget her, what else had he forgotten?

Nelson changed the tape, and the woman sat down, hunched over her drink, a picture of misery. The other people at her table glanced at her sympathetically, and a young man with close-cropped hair, wearing a leather jacket, touched her arm. She gave him a grateful look.

"He and I danced to that song in my flat, the last night I was there." She was close to tears. "I'd never been so happy. But then - " She buried her face in her hands, and a young man with gold highlights in his hair pushed a box of Kleenex across the table to her, looking awkward. Just at that moment, the pub door opened and DS Miller walked in. He strode confidently over to the bar, and Alex jumped up and ran to the door, but it blew shut before she could reach it, and she cried out in despair.

That was what I heard last night, when Miller opened the door, Gene thought. Alex Drake. The woman who lived here. But why is she so upset?

A younger girl with shoulder length dark hair went over to Alex and gently helped her back to her seat, and the man in the leather jacket changed seats with someone else so that the two women could sit together. DS Miller got his drink and sat at a table with two other people who Gene recognised, DC Penfold and DS Hammon, both of whom had gone to the Railway Arms the previous year. Miller had worked with them for a long time, and soon the three of them were delightedly renewing old acquaintances, swapping reminiscences, and catching up on news. It was all just as a pub should be.

By and by, when Hammon went to the bar for another round, Alex slipped into his seat beside Miller.

"Hello. Have you come here from Fenchurch East?"

"That's right." Miller drained his glass.

"I worked there too, long ago." She hesitated. "How is the Guv - DCI Hunt?"

"Oh, he's fine. Same old Guv, terrorising scum and coppers alike, driving like a maniac, drinking enough for six, free with his fists, the best Guv there ever was or will be. Probably hasn't changed all that much since you knew him."

"No." Her eyes glowed. "Tell me, does he ever talk about anyone who used to be there?"

"No, not much. Very much a man for the moment, our Guv. Keeps himself to himself, doesn't get close to anyone or talk to anyone, except about work."

"Didn't - didn't he ever mention Alex?"

Miller thought for a moment, and shook his head. "No, I don't ever remember him saying that name. Why?"

There was a desperate longing in her eyes. "Or - Bolly? Bols?" She was close to tears again. "He used to call me that."

"No, I'm afraid not. But if you want to hear about him, I can tell you some great stories about the adventures he and I had together."

"Thank you." She forced a smile, although tears were running down her face. "I'd like to hear them some time, please. But not now."

She stumbled away, and barely made it back to her table before she broke down again. Miller, surprised, glanced at Penfold, who said quietly, "She asks the same thing to everyone who comes in here. It's like an initiation ritual. I think she's a bit mad."

"You shut up!" The man with highlights turned around and shook his fist at them. "You'll never know what she's had to suffer."

"Sorry, Chris." Penfold shrugged his apology and turned back to his friends. The younger girl was trying to comfort the weeping Alex.

"Please don't cry, Ma'am, please don't. He'll come some day, and then he'll remember everything, you'll see." But Gene recognised that she must have said the same words in the same situation many times before, and they held little conviction.

"No, Shaz, no," Alex moaned. "I've waited and waited, but he'll never come now. He's forgotten me, he's forgotten all of us. I mean nothing to him. He has no reason to come any more. He'll just go on for ever, helping coppers and sending them here, he'll never come himself, never. I'll never see him again." She looked up, wild-eyed. "If he saw me, maybe he'd remember. I must go to him." Before Shaz could stop her, she had jumped from her seat and ran towards the door, but a big man with a moustache and a ridiculous curly perm blocked her way and caught her in his arms.

"No, Alex! You know you can't! Nobody can leave here."

She sagged against him, sobbing, and he wrapped his arms around her, trying to offer comfort where there was none to give. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he relaxed his gentle grip. In a flash, she pulled free, hurling herself at the door, beating at it with her fists until they bled.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

She slid down the door and collapsed in a heap at its foot. Most of the pub's occupants looked embarassed or simply ignored what had happened, but a small group, who obviously knew her, clustered around her with murmurs of sympathy. Again, Gene guessed that all this had happened many, many times before. A short, stout, middle-aged woman pushed her way through the group, knelt beside Alex, and gathered the weeping woman to her capacious bosom, rocking her like a mother with a child.

"There, there, Alex love. Sssh, sssh…" She turned her head and bawled, "NELSON! First Aid box! We'll want a bowl of water too."

"Coming up, Phyllis." He reached under the bar, produced the box, ran a bowl of water from the bar tap, and brought them over to the group.

A sweet-faced young woman took the box and knelt beside Alex. "When I took my basic First Aid training, I never thought I'd need it here, of all places. It's lucky this First Aid box never runs out."

Nelson shook his head. "Never known anything like this in all my time as a barkeep. Never needed the First Aid box at all, until she arrived. It shouldn't be possible for anyone here to be hurt, or to feel sadness or pain."

"That's because she shouldn't be here," the man in the leather jacket said sadly. "She was sent before her time. She can't let go of the life she was forced to leave. That's why this place is a prison to her."

The younger woman took Alex's bleeding hand. "Is it worthwhile doing this? She'll only tear the bandages off again. She always does."

"We'll put her under first." Phyllis reached into the box and produced a bottle of sleeping pills. "Nelson, glass of water."

"I'll get it." The man in the leather jacket poured out a glassful of water from the jug on the counter, and brought it back to Phyllis.

"Ta, Boss." She knocked two tablets from the bottle into her hand. "Now, Alex, take these." Alex whimpered a token resistance, but there was no fight left in her, and she swallowed them. They all watched as her eyelids drooped.

"What I can't get," Chris ventured, "is why she can't move on like the rest of us have? All of us left people we loved behind when we died, but we know we'll see them again, and we can wait. Why can't she?"

Shaz cuffed him lightly. "She know she has to wait for her daughter, and she's accepted that. But Sam's right, she was sent here before her time. The rest of us had finished with the Guv's world when we came here, but she hadn't. She loves him, and he rejected her. That's what she can't bear. We only have to wait until our loved ones die, but who knows when the Guv's work will be finished? She may go on waiting for ever."

"Bastard", Phyllis snarled, as she and the younger woman set to work to bathe Alex's tear-stained face and bleeding hands, anoint the raw skin with Savlon and antiseptic, and bandage her.

"But think of what he does," the younger woman said gently. "Each and every person here had issues with their deaths. He gave us all the lives we should have had and made us become the coppers we should be, so that we could come here. Is that so little?"

Phyllis wrapped a bandage around Alex's hand. "Yeah, he charges about in his latest new car, chasing scum, having adventures, having fun. Goes on about being where he's needed. He's needed here."

"Guv'll have had 'is reasons for doing what he did." Chris could not look Shaz in the eye as he said it.

"He is, and always will be, the Guv," the big man added loyally. "But I wish..." His voice tailed off as he looked down at the once indomitable woman who lay in a defeated heap at his feet.

The younger woman stood and turned to Nelson. "We'll need a blanket and a pillow."

Nelson nodded. "Right away, Annie. I've got them under the bar."

Chris looked bewildered. "This is the first pub I've ever heard of, where you can get a pillow and blanket."

"Yeah, what else 'ave you got under there?" the big man added.

Nelson returned with the blanket and pillow under his arm. "This is the Railway Arms, mon brave. Under this bar is everything you could want."

The big man glanced pityingly at Alex. "Except that she can never have what she wants, and it's destroying her."

"That's enough." Phyllis took charge again. "Time you made yourself useful, Ray. Carry her into the saloon bar."

"Sure." The big man gently picked Alex up and carried her through to the next room, with Phyllis preceding him like a town crier, and Nelson, Shaz and Annie following. A long settle, currently occupied by several drinkers, ran along one side of the saloon bar.

"OFF!" Phyllis bawled at them in the dulcet tones of a welder. "This is requisitioned by the police!"

"But we are the police," one puzzled drinker replied.

Phyllis faced him, hands on hips, with her most ferocious glare. "So am I. Any problems?"

"Er, no." The drinkers, grumbling amongst themselves, vacated the settle, Ray laid Alex down upon it, and Nelson placed the pillow under her head and swathed her in the blanket.

"Thanks, boys. We'll stay with her."

"Anything I can get you ladies while you wait?"

"Ta, Nelson, I'll have a port and lemon. Annie? Shaz?"

"Campari, please."

"White wine."

"Coming up."

Nelson vanished, returned a few moments later with the drinks, and left the ladies to sit at a table beside the sleeping Alex.

"I still say the Guv's a selfish bastard," Phyllis flailed an arm in Alex's direction. "As pretty a thing as I ever saw, and he's broken her. Every single time a new person comes in here, the same thing happens. She asks them if he remembers her, they say he doesn't, and she tears herself to bits trying to get out."

"It's like watching a bird break its wings," Annie whispered, full of pity.

"She wasn't always like this," Shaz said softly. "She used to be so strong. And the Guv loved her, I know he did. The way he used to look at her..."

"Didn't stop him forgetting her," Phyllis said tartly.

"No," Shaz admitted. "I don't know how he could. Me, Chris, Ray, but not her. Maybe he had to, because it hurt him too much to remember."

"What about hurting her?"

"He must have thought that he was doing the right thing in sending her here," Shaz said stoutly. "He wouldn't knowingly have hurt her. I'm sure of that."

"I'd hurt him, if I got anywhere near him," Phyllis said darkly.

"She was the most brilliant copper I've ever known," Shaz said sadly. "She and the Guv used to argue all the time. He'd never have admitted it, but he learned so much from her. They brought out the best and the worst in each other. Chris says he once saw her punch the Guv so hard, she nearly knocked him off his feet. He called her Joe Bugner in a frock."

"Good girl." Phyllis took a swig of her port and lemon. "If he dares show his face around here, I'll punch him for her."

"For God's sake don't say that where Ray and Chris can hear you." Annie tried to hide her amusement. "They'll open a book on whether you'd dare to do it or not."

"Let them." Phyllis banged her glass down on the table. "He'd better not come anywhere near me."

"I hope he does," Shaz said very seriously. "I don't know how much more of this she can take."

The sound of Phyllis's glass had disturbed Alex, and she stirred. "Gene?"

Shaz sat beside her and stroked her hair. "No, Ma'am, he isn't here yet. But he'll come here soon. You'll see."

The TV picture winked out suddenly. Gene had been watching in agony. He knew all these people. Sam, Annie, Ray, Chris, Shaz, Phyllis, Alex, above all, Alex. How could he ever have forgotten? He clutched his head while reawakened memories flooded through him, too fast for him to process, a myriad of images overwhelming him until he thought that he would collapse with the pain of it.

Alex. Bolly. His Alex. The woman he had loved. Still loved, now he remembered her again. He had never told her, of course. Gene Hunt did not do love. But he had loved her, even when she drove him out of his mind, as she had regularly done twenty-four hours a day. Even when her recklessness had nearly led to the closure of his station. Even when he had feared that she was a traitor. That was why he had preserved this place, just as she had left it, because he could not bear to let anyone else live where she had lived, throwing away her belongings like rubbish, letting her be forgotten. Yet he had kept it as her memorial and then forgotten her.

He had loved her as much for her wit, her courage and daring, her brilliant mind, as for her beauty. Now she was a broken, bleeding shell of her former self. He knew that they all blamed him, though only Phyllis would say it. That woman always did call a digging implement a bloody spade.

Why could he not remember how and why Alex had gone from his life? Shaz had said that he had sent Alex to the Railway Arms, because it would have hurt him too much to remember. Remember what? Why had he sent her away when she needed him? However much it hurt, he would have to try to remember now, for Alex's sake.

He had shot her... shot her. He remembered that. But it was not why they had parted. He knew that she had continued working with him afterwards. It was after the shooting that he had slapped her face to bring her out of a coma, because he had needed her to clear his name. But try as he would, he could not recall how their time together had ended.

The smell of her perfume had been the first thing to awaken his memory. The sight of Alex's lonely misery in the Railway Arms had been the second. She had begged Nelson not to play a song, because she and Gene had danced to it in her flat, the last time she was there.

Gene stood and walked over to the sound system, which stood on a shelf opposite the sofa. There was a tape in the cassette player. If he had left everything else undisturbed since her departure, this could be the music that she had played then. Smell and sight had both helped to restore his memory. It was time to try sound. He pressed the Play switch.

The air was filled with soft music. Gradually he recognised the song, one which he had not heard for many years.

So true funny how it seems
Always in time, but never in line for dreams

He closed his eyes and held out one arm to encircle an imaginary woman and bring her close to him, holding out his other hand to take hers, swaying gently to the music in time with the rhythm of her body.

Head over heels when toe to toe
This is the sound of my soul,

This is the sound

He could almost feel the weight of her head, resting upon his shoulder.

I bought a ticket to the world,
But now I've come back again
Why do I find it hard to write the next line
Oh I want the truth to be said

He remembered, with agonising sweetness, how his lips had brushed her brow. In those moments, she had trusted him, opened up to him, let him cherish her as never before or since.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true

She had raised her head and looked into his eyes. Hers had been smoky with desire. They had moved closer, their lips had nearly met...

...and then a knock at the door had broken the spell, and a dark enemy had driven them apart, sowing the doubt and suspicion that had sent her from this place, never to return.

The song ran on unheeded until the tape ended with a sharp click. Gene opened his eyes, trembling. What had happened after that? They must have met again. She could not have gone to the Railway Arms unless he had taken her there. But what had followed that had made him banish her there before her time?

He sat on the sofa, deep in thought. He didn't have to be a psychologist to know that the more painful the memory, the deeper it would be hidden within him. Something he had needed to forget so much, that he had even made himself forget her. But now he had started on this quest, he had to follow it to its conclusion, no matter what the cost to himself. Alex had already paid heavily enough.

Self-induced amnesia, she had called it once, when a witness to a brutal murder had blanked out everything. Gene had thought that the man was lying when he denied all knowledge of the incident. He had threatened to paint him all over the interview room, but Alex had taken charge and, slowly and carefully, she had drawn a statement from the terrified witness, using association techniques.

Association. What could he associate with her, to make him remember what had happened after she had left this flat? He concentrated again. Words? Music? Objects? He stood and walked around the flat, looking at each item it contained. But his gut instinct told him that whatever the answer was, he would not find it here. Something had happened after she had left the flat for the last time.

He turned out all the lights and left the flat, closing the door softly behind him and locking it. Something told him that he would not return here either. They must both have been in CID, at some time after she had abandoned the refuge of her flat. Perhaps he would find the answer there.

TBC