22nd December 2010
Grace,
By the time you have read this letter the deed of handing in my resignation to the Commissioner will already be done and it will be too late for you to stop me.
For you to understand the reason why I did this, you must know the whole truth and nothing else. But before you do, I want you to know that everything I've decided about handing in my resignation is entirely down to me and me alone. So please don't think that my decision to resign has anything to do with you. Please don't blame yourself. There is nothing to be sorry about. Anyway even if there is something to be sorry about it should be me saying sorry not you. However here is the reason for my decision to hand in my resignation.
Over the past eight years or so, whenever I needed to talk to someone whether it was to do with work or personal issues you were the one who was always there for me no matter how difficult I could be. And it still amazes me even now on how you can cope with my temper and continue to stand by me even though I try to push you away. Even when I start shouting at you just because of a little disagreement, you always seem to turn a blind eye and try to get me to calm down. It's funny that because I know that my temper outbursts do affect you. However you never let it show that it does and you just carry on with whatever you were doing in the first place.
I know we've had some times when you and I have had our disagreements about cases we've been working on nevertheless we constantly sort out our differences in the end. But that's because you're usually the one to take the first step to get me to apologize for my behaviour despite the fact that I never do and so you have to do it instead. When we do make up by then everything is back to normal. Well as normal as it was before our arguments. And then we carry on with whatever we were doing before along with forgetting whatever was said between us. But then we had that argument during the Daniel Lennon case. During which I know I said some unnecessary words to you but I only said them in the heat of the moment. I never meant to say them; they just came out of my mouth. And the scary thing is; you know me better than I know myself. I know at first I may have seemed fine with what I said about you however as soon as you left, I felt dreadful and regretted those words that I said about you.
Before you left, it may have seemed to you that I may have been alright with the idea of the team and I coping well without you but let me tell you within the few hours after you had left the building, I could see that we weren't coping at all. In fact we were falling apart without you. The team could see that I wasn't coping well with your departure too so they tried to get me to take the first step this to apologize for my behaviour, not only because they wanted to shut the case but also because they wanted us to get along like we normally did. However I was being stubborn as usual and told them actually shouted at them to just carry on with the case. Nonetheless after the others had gone for the night, I stayed behind and went into your office to try to think about what I would say to you before I actually called you. Anyway I tried calling you but I got no answer, just got your answering machine. Either because you weren't there or you were there but didn't want to talk to me. And I completely understood that so that's why I put the phone back down. All I wanted to say to you was I was sorry about what I had said to you and how I treated you like you meant nothing to me. But that is far from the truth.
I know I can't change how I was in the past but instead I can only hope to change for the future and sort things out between us before it's too late. I can only hope that you can forgive me for all the other stupid things I have done in the past too.
Remember when Mel died and Frankie left. Well after that happened it looked to me like the team was going to split up but it was you who kept us together, You were the one who made sure I treated the others right when they joined the team and made sure they felt like part of the team. Even when I found out that Luke was dead, you were there for me even though I excluded you because I thought I could cope with the grief on my own but now come to think of it I wish I hadn't excluded you.
After that happened I thought everything was back to normal again but I was wrong. Another two tragedies struck us; Stella died and Spence left the team. When that happened I thought that, that was going to be it. The last time we would be together as a team but then Kat joined us and you showed me how important the team was to me so you kept us together. Even though we weren't five in the Cold Case Unit as one us decided to pursue his career in CID we still were a team. Everything was back to normal the way it should be but that was until Linda came onto the scene again and took you hostage. That was the worst moment in my life when I thought that I could have lost you for good. But when Linda told me that I had to kill Penny or you would die instead, I couldn't do it however I didn't want to lose you too not after everything else we had been through in the past. I would have never forgiven myself if you had died.
And so this is why I handed in my resignation because I don't want to risk losing you. Not after what you have been through with Mel's death, the Tony Greene case, Stella's death and now your illness. You have always been there for me when I needed you the most and so it is my turn to be there for you. After all if I continue to do this job while you were doing your treatment, I would only revert back to shouting at you and the rest of the team. Then who knows what might happen. If I stay, I might lose you for good this time and if that happened I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. I would rather sacrifice and lose my career for you rather than lose you for my career.
Peter
